


Rewind

by The_Bookkeeper



Series: Shelter [5]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, References to Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-06
Updated: 2013-10-23
Packaged: 2017-12-28 15:42:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 34,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/993669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Bookkeeper/pseuds/The_Bookkeeper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack has been expecting Donna’s call for a while. He just wasn’t expecting <i>this.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is the latest installment in my 'Shelter' series. It's not strictly necessary to read the other stories in the series, but it will probably help you understand the dynamics better. It's set a few months after Inertia and is definitely AU, in that the events of Reset and Exit Wounds never happened, or at least haven't yet. In other words, everyone on Team Torchwood is still properly alive. For the Doctor and Donna, it's set some time after Midnight.
> 
> Rated for swearing, references to self-harm, and some very brief and non-graphic sex in the prologue.

" _This is Emergency Programme Eight._

" _Donna, if you're watching this, then the TARDIS has detected irregularities in my brain pattern. Now, before you start making cracks about my mental stability, that could mean a lot of things, and not all of them involve me going mad. I could have amnesia, or be in a coma, or . . . lots of other things. Probably._

" _That said . . . ._

" _Once we're both in the TARDIS, she'll take you to Torchwood. They'll have the best chance of sorting whatever's gone wrong. Try not to traumatize Owen too much; he can be difficult, but he's a better man than he likes to admit. They all are. Well, not Gwen or Toshiko, obviously, because they're not men at all, so they're better women – anyway, you know what I mean._

" _If they can't sort it . . . let them do whatever they decide is best. I trust Jack's judgment._

" _Tell him that. And tell him that I'm sorry. For whatever happens. It's not his fault, and I don't want him making sacrifices for me._

" _That goes for you, too._

" _You're brilliant, Donna Noble; you really are. Don't ever forget that._

" _And in case I'm never in a fit state to say it again . . . ._

" _Thank you. For everything."_

  
_  
_~~~

Jack was not thinking about the Doctor when the call came in.

This was somewhat unlikely, seeing as everything from complicated moral dilemmas to bananas reminded him of the Doctor, but nonetheless, when his phone rang on an unusually warm spring evening, Jack was not thinking much of anything except _yesoh_ _ **god**_ _yesmorethereyesyes_ _ **yes.**_

A few moments later he was coherent enough to think about just how much he loved Ianto and that maybe he should get around to telling him that sometime. It was a slow, warm sort of thought, and Jack wasn't keen on ruining it by actually considering the implications of such a declaration, so he didn't.

"Shouldn't you get that?" asked Ianto, after few more moments had passed and the phone was still ringing.

Jack made an inarticulate sound somewhere between a moan and a growl, but reluctantly groped for his phone, grumbling under his breath about what he'd rather be groping. Ianto's soft chuckle did nothing to quell those desires.

"Harkness," he snapped into the phone, not bothering to keep his irritation out of his voice.

" _Oh, thank god! I didn't know what to do and then I finally called you but it just kept ringing and I thought maybe I got the wrong number –"_

"Wait, slow down," interrupted Jack, sitting up in bed, suddenly alert and focused. "Who is this?"

Though, he thought he already knew. Very few people had this number, one of them was with him, and the woman on the phone didn't sound like Gwen or Martha or Tosh, so unless Owen had managed to stumble across some sort of gender-swapping ray which had also somehow changed his accent . . . .

" _Donna Noble. I'm travelling with the Doctor – I didn't know who else to call and there was some sort of hologram like in Star Wars but of course Time Boy would ramble on about last messages and not say anything useful –"_

Jack's blood ran cold at the phrase 'last messages.' The Doctor wasn't – he couldn't possibly be – "Donna, what happened?"

" _I don't know!"_ exclaimed Donna, sounding on the verge of hysteria.  _"There was some sort of alien mad scientist thing and he went and got caught in the middle of it, the idiot, and I managed to get him back into the TARDIS and now we're in some sort of hospital thing but he won't wake up and he's been out for_ _ **hours**_ **–** "

"But he's alive?" Jack inquired, daring to hope.

" _Yes,"_  Donna confirmed, and Jack would have collapsed in relief if he hadn't already been sitting down.  _"And the computers say he's stable, which is good, but –"_

"Alright, Donna, where are you?" Jack cut her off before she could start rambling again. He threw off the covers and began to dress one-handed.

" _The hologram said something about Torchwood. I'm sure I've heard that name before –"_

"Okay, the TARDIS took you to Torchwood?" clarified Jack.

" _I think so. I'm pretty sure we landed, but I haven't gone to check. I don't want to leave him on his own . . . ."_

"No, that's good," said Jack, pulling on his coat with the assistance of Ianto, who was already fully clothed. "Stay with him. I'll be there as soon as I can."

He hung up, not caring if he seemed callous. At this particular moment, he didn't care about anything except getting to the Doctor.

Thankfully, Ianto's flat was about as close as possible to the Hub, and within minutes they were screeching to a halt at the Plass. It was deserted, so Jack burst into the Tourist Information Centre at a run, slamming his hand onto the button and slipping through the door when it was barely open. It seemed to take a lifetime for the lift to reach the bottom, even with Ianto beside him, his hand on his arm in a silent show of support.

The lift doors finally slid open, and Jack paused to scan the Hub. His gaze immediately lit upon the blue box standing in the corner of his office.

He was up the stairs in an instant, pausing only to aim a vicious kick at Owen's chair, sending the snoring man tumbling to the ground amid a torrent of curses.

The TARDIS door was locked. Jack fumbled with his keychain, growling in frustration as he dropped it. Ianto was suddenly beside him, gently stilling his hands. Jack hadn't realized that they were trembling. Ianto deftly selected the correct key and unlocked the door before stepping back to let Jack through.

The normally comforting hum of the TARDIS had a note of distress in it, which only served to spur Jack on. The med bay was conveniently placed just outside the console room, and Jack burst through the door without hesitation.

"Finally!" exclaimed Donna, who leapt to her feet upon his arrival. "He hasn't gotten any worse, but he hasn't woken up, either, and I don't know what to do –"

"Donna, calm down," said Jack firmly, forcing himself to look into her eyes and not at the prone figure on the bed, ignoring his own panic in favor of soothing hers. "It's going to be alright. The Doctor is strong."

"Of course he is," said Donna scornfully, as if Jack had just said that Einstein was smart. Her unthinking conviction was far more reassuring to him than his own well-practiced platitudes, and he actually felt his own fears abate somewhat as he turned to the bed. The Doctor would be fine. He had Torchwood, and he had the TARDIS, and whatever he had gotten himself into this time, Jack was sure that they had all dealt with far worse.

"Alright, so tell me what . . ." He trailed off as he got a proper look at the Doctor's face.

_Well, shit._


	2. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jack is exasperated, Donna is offended, and the Doctor is difficult.

Had the situation not been so dire, Donna probably would have been amused at the stunned look on Captain Jack's face as he stared at the Doctor. If she was perfectly honest with herself, she was a little bit amused anyway.

Once again, the Doctor had managed to get the both of them into a predicament which was both utterly terrifying and completely ridiculous. One moment the Doctor had been making a somewhat melodramatic but undeniably impressive speech to the evil mad scientist whose plan they had just foiled, and the next the idiot – the evil idiot, not the Doctor – had gone and thrown himself into his own, highly unstable device. The device, of course, proceeded to go into some sort of meltdown, and the Doctor had been too busy trying to save the man who had been trying to murder them a few minutes ago to get out of the way in time. Fortunately, Donna had managed to drag him back into the TARDIS before the whole thing exploded, despite the fact that he was unconscious and suddenly far more awkward than usual.

He was more awkward than usual on account of having inexplicably transformed into a fourteen-year-old.

Which explained why Captain Jack looked as though someone had slapped him across the face with a dead herring.

"I think I'd rather deal with gender-swapping," the Captain muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing." He ran a hand through his hair, collecting himself. "Okay, believe it or not, I've actually seen stuff like this before."

"Really?" asked Donna, only slightly surprised. One didn't hang around the Doctor very long without seeing a lot of strange things.

"I'm from the fifty-first century," Jack explained. "Anti-aging technology is pretty advanced by then, and reverse-aging technology is pretty dangerous."

Alright,  _now_  she was surprised.

"If you're from the future, how come your clothes are from World War II?"

"It's a long story. The point is, I'm pretty sure I know what we're dealing with. He's unconscious because his body's still dealing with the shock; that shouldn't be a big problem. When he wakes up, though, it could go two ways. Either he'll still be himself, just in a younger body, in which case he'll figure out a way to put himself back to normal and Owen will tease him mercilessly forever –"

Donna snorted. She wondered if that was the same Owen whom the Doctor had mentioned in his weird hologram thing.

"—or he'll have lost all his memories and reverted back to his fourteen-year-old self, in which case things might get complicated."

"Why?" asked Donna. "He'll still be a genius. I bet he was the swottiest fifth-former in history. If we just tell him what's going on he'll probably be able to fix it."

"Donna, he's fourteen," said Jack, with exaggerated patience. "Do you remember being fourteen?"

"Oi, I'm not that old, thanks!" huffed Donna. Honestly, he couldn't be much younger than she was. The nerve of some people . . . .

"No, that's –" Jack gritted his teeth and let out his breath in a frustrated rush. "Look, he's going to be terrified. He won't recognize this room, or the TARDIS, or either of us. At this age, I don't know if he'd have even been off his home planet."

"Oh," she said softly, a terrible understanding blooming in her mind. "Oh god. His planet – he won't know –"

"Exactly," said Jack grimly.

"He won't know . . ." she repeated, sinking back into the chair which had been her perch for the last few hours. She stared at the face of the sleeping boy who looked so much like the Doctor, and yet so different. He wouldn't know her, wouldn't know Captain Jack, wouldn't know his precious, precious ship, wouldn't know what had happened to his planet and his people . . . .

"Are you okay?" asked Jack gently, crouching down beside her. His blue eyes, previously hard with fear and aggravation, were soft and sympathetic.

"Yeah," she said, because she was. She was exhausted and starving, her feet hurt from running and her head hurt from crying and the rest of her hurt from hitting the ground when the Doctor shoved her out of the blast radius of the machine, but she was okay. "Better than him, anyway," she added in a pale attempt at humor, nodding at the Doctor. She wasn't sure that it was true, though. His young face was smooth and relaxed, his expression and posture more peaceful than she had ever seen him.

That, more than anything, made her doubt Jack's next words.

"He might still be himself. The amnesia is just a possibility."

Donna opened her mouth to respond, but was cut off when the Doctor gave a weak moan, his eyelids fluttering. Both she and Jack turned their attention to him, holding their breaths.

~~~

The boy's eyes snapped open.

Jack knew, the instant he caught sight of those eyes, that the Doctor was no longer present behind them – not the Doctor he knew, at least. They were too bright, too frightened, and far too young. Then the boy began to babble frantically, struggling against the sheets and his too-big clothes, and Jack's stomach dropped to his knees.

He was speaking Gallifreyan.

Donna was trying to calm him, her maternal manner a stark contrast to her earlier panic and anger.

"Honey, honey, it's alright," she said gently, holding up her hands in a conciliatory gesture as the boy – Jack couldn't think of him as the Doctor – attempted to shrink away from her as much as possible. "We won't hurt you. Can you speak English?"

Jack was about to tell her that it was no use; from what little he'd gleaned about the Doctor's culture, they were both highly advanced and extremely xenophobic; there was no way any child of Gallifrey would know the language of archaic, primitive aliens –

The boy nodded hesitantly.

"Yes," he said. "But I don't understand – where am I? I've regenerated, haven't I? Is that why I'm here? Who are you?  _What_  are you? You're not Gallifreyan. What –"

"Whoa, slow down," said Jack firmly, cutting across the flow of oddly accented words. "We'll explain everything soon." That may or may not have been an utter lie. He hadn't decided, yet, just how much this young sort-of Doctor should know. It would all depend on how much he was willing to believe, as well as his emotional maturity. "What's your name?"

Donna shot him a bewildered look, but Jack cut off any questions with a small shake of his head. The Doctor had strongly implied in times past that his title was one he had chosen for himself, and there was no way of knowing when in his life that had occurred.

"Theta Sigma," said the boy, eying him suspiciously. "My friends call me Theta. And what the  _hell_  is wrong with you? You're all sort of –" He unfolded from the corner into which he had pressed himself, reaching towards Jack with a mixture of awe and revulsion on his face. "—I don't know an English word for it."

Jack stood very, very still, careful not to show any of the old pain which the boy's – Theta's – words touched on, or to startle him with any sudden movement. Nevertheless, the hand which reached towards him (still long and boney, but less elegant than he was used to) faltered a few inches from his coat and withdrew.

"It's a long story," said Jack evenly, when Theta finally ran out of words. "I promise you, we don't mean you any harm. You don't remember us, but we're your friends. You've been in an accident."

Theta snorted acerbically.

"Yeah, I kind of gathered that from the fact that I'm suddenly all tall and – what color is my hair?" he asked abruptly, all fear apparently forgotten as he crossed his eyes, trying to see his own hair.

"Brown," said Jack shortly, figuring that it would probably be most efficient to just humor him.

"Good lord, he's even worse than the older one," Donna muttered quietly from beside him.

Theta wasn't paying attention, too busy making a face at Jack's response.

" _Brown?_  That's a bit boring, isn't it? Wait, hang on –" He scrambled out of the bed, stumbling over his too-long trousers as he did so. "Why am I wearing these clothes? Never mind, how tall am I? I need something for reference." He glanced around, found nothing suitably familiar, and made a frustrated sound. "Well, I  _feel_  tall. I bet I'm taller than Koschei. He's going to be –"

He cut himself off, paling suddenly. Donna was closer, and caught him as he staggered.

"Easy does it, Space Boy," she said, helping him sit down on the bed again.

"It's just the shock," said Theta, a bit faintly. "I'll be fine . . . .where – where's Koschei?" The pitiful confusion in his voice and on his face still made Jack's heart twist, despite the fact that the reason he sounded young this time was because he  _was_. "He should be here by now. Is he okay?"

"What's the last thing you remember?" asked Jack, hating to take advantage of this boy – who was simultaneously a child under his protection and a man whom he had loved for centuries – in this vulnerable moment, but also knowing that the more information they had the better chance they'd have of helping him.

"There was . . . an explosion." Panic flashed across Theta's face, and he leapt up again, ignoring Donna's attempts to keep him seated. "Was he there? Is he hurt? I think I pushed someone out of the way . . . was that him? He should be okay, then, right? I mean, I regenerated, but I'm okay."

"No, you're not," said Jack, more sharply than he intended. "Sit back down."

He should have known that a direct order would not go over well with any version of the Doctor. Theta bristled, his expression turning mutinous.

"I still don't trust you," he said, obviously trying to be stern but coming off more petulant. "I don't know where I am and her skin's too warm and you just  _burn_. And you're speaking English. It's strange. You're strange. This whole thing is strange. How do I know you're not the ones who made me regenerate?"

"Why would we do that?" demanded Donna, while Jack pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. He had only been dealing with the kid for ten minutes and he was already feeling a tension headache coming on.

"How am I supposed to know? Maybe you want to study me. Maybe you want to hold me for ransom. Maybe –"

Oh, fuck it. Jack was just going to tell him the truth, if only to make him stop talking.

"Theta! Listen, we didn't kidnap you, and this is not the first time you've regenerated. You have amnesia."

He explained, leaving out all unnecessary and unnecessarily painful back-story. Theta listened, looking significantly less impressed and/or disturbed than Jack felt he should have.

"Okay," he said, once Jack had finished.

". . . what?"

"Okay," he repeated. "I believe you."

"What, just like that?" Donna asked incredulously. Theta rolled his eyes.

"Any alien clever enough to get into the Citadel would also be clever enough to come up with a more convincing cover story. The anti-aging thing doesn't even make sense, so it must be true."

". . .  _what?_ "

Theta ignored him, occupied with taking off his suit jacket and rolling up his sleeves and trouser legs until they were somewhat serviceable.

"So this is my ship, right?"

"Yeah, it's your . . . hang on; where do you think you're going?"

"To get something to eat; I'm starving."

Jack made a grab for his shoulder as he tried to slip past, but Theta evaded it, albeit more clumsily than his older self would have. He bolted out the door. Jack didn't bother to follow – he was sure that the TARDIS wouldn't let him get into  _too_  much trouble.

A moment later, Ianto poked his head through the doorway, his face carefully neutral.

"I came to see if you needed anything, sir. Is it fair to assume that you'll require a set of boy's clothes and some painkillers?"

"Yes, Ianto," sighed Jack. "That's exactly what I need."


	3. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor eats Jammy Dodgers, Donna lays down the law, and Owen doesn't enjoy himself as much as he feels he ought to.

The Doctor – or Theta, or whatever it was Donna was supposed to call him now – was in the kitchen when they found him. Due to the TARDIS' cooperation, that was only a few minutes since he had made a break for it, but he had already managed to find the Jammy Dodgers and was munching on one absently as he peered into the refrigerator.

"Is this all human food?" he questioned, through a mouthful of crumbs.

"Just the things on the top shelf," answered Donna. She had made the Doctor organize it all after her first morning on the TARDIS, when she had cracked open an ordinary-looking egg to find something bright green and gummy inside.

"Mm. Can't find anything from home," he commented, and Donna flinched, hearing Jack suck in a breath beside her. Thankfully, the Doctor's fourteen-year-old self was apparently even more oblivious than the older version, and didn't notice. "Oh, well." He shut the fridge and settled at the table with his pack of Jammy Dodgers. "These are  _good_ ," he said, his mouth still full.

Donna rolled her eyes. Some things never changed.

"Doctor –"

"Theta," Jack cut her off, sliding into the chair across from the boy and ignoring the glare which Donna aimed at the back of his head. "We need to find a way to get you back to normal. Tell me the last thing you remember."

"Like I said, there was an explosion."

"Before that."

The mini-Doctor frowned, his thoughtful look made particularly comical by the crumbs all down his front.

"I . . . I'm not sure." His frown deepened. "I think – there was something about Koschei. We . . . we had a fight? I was angry, and he was angry, and I was trying to stop him, so he pushed me and I pushed him back and something broke –"

The phrase rang a bell in Donna's head, and she gasped.

"That's it!"

"What?" asked Jack, while the Doctor, Jr. questioned,

"What's it?"

"It's something you said!" Donna said, pointing at the Time Tot. "Earlier, when you were older. We were looking at that machine, the one that exploded . . ."

" _Alright, Spaceman, so what's it do? Turn you inside out? Drive you mad?"_

" _No, nothing like that." The Doctor was frowning at the monitor on the side of the giant, haphazard construction, ignoring both the intermittent sparks and the faint trembling in his hands. Donna hadn't failed to notice either, and was already planning to first, drag him away from the machine if it got any worse, and second, drag him to bed as soon as they were back in the TARDIS._ _ **His**_ _bed, of course – wouldn't want him getting any ideas._

" _What is it, then?"_

" _It looks like it's searching memories . . . but what for?" He scrubbed his hands through his hair with a growl of frustration, making it stand on end and giving him a slightly crazed appearance. "Wait, hang on – got it! It's searching for the earliest instance of Class Five Omega signals in a person's psychic signature."_

" _Oi! English!"_

" _It's looking for the first real mistake someone made. The first time they really understood the consequences of what they did. The moment when something broke._

" _It's looking for the point where childhood ends."_

". . . so that must be what it does. Turns you back to wherever your childhood ended."

"Well, that's a bit depressing," said the space boy lightly, reaching for another Jammy Dodger. "Also, it seems really subjective. I mean, why your first mistake? What about your first loss, or your first rejection, or your first responsibility?"

"More importantly," Jack cut in, "I don't see how it helps us get him back to normal. I mean, we have some age-amplifying devices at Torchwood, but without knowing exactly how his physiology works . . ."

"I know how my physiology works," interjected the manic munchkin. "Well, sort of," he qualified, in response to their two skeptical stares. "Well, not really, but I can learn. There's a library in here somewhere, right?"

He bounced to his feet and was gone again before either of them could respond, darting out the door with the pack of Jammy Dodgers under his arm.

"I'll go after him," Donna sighed. "You go find that fancy Torchwood technology."

"Yes, Ma'am," said Jack with a joking salute. "I'll grab Owen, too," he added, pausing in the doorway. "He's a doctor, a medical one. He probably knows more about the Doctor's physiology than anyone else in the Universe, right now."

He spun on his heel and was gone in a swirl of his long coat. She shook her head with a snort of amusement and forced her aching muscles into action. She went directly to the library, trusting that the TARDIS would have led the Oncoming Acne there and only there.

He was indeed there, poking through the shelves. He glanced around as she entered.

"Hey, if you're human, does that mean we're on Earth?" he asked, turning back to his search.

"Yeah, we're on Earth. Where else would we be?"

"Pretty much anywhere in time and space, considering that we're in a TARDIS." He faltered, looking slightly stunned. "We're in a TARDIS," he repeated, a grin spreading across his face, his eyes shining with pure, unadulterated delight like she had never seen in him before. "We're in  _my_  TARDIS, on  _Earth._ "

This time she managed to catch the back of his collar as he tried to slip past her.

"Hold up, Brain Boy! You have work to do."

"Oh, come on, just five minutes?"

"You're forgetting something, genius," said Donna, holding her ground with practiced firmness. Dealing with a fourteen-year-old Doctor wasn't so different from dealing with the older one – he just had less ammunition to fire back with. "I know you. You  _say_  five minutes, and the next thing you know it's three hours later and you're chatting up the Prime Minister."

" _Please?_ " he implored, with completely unfair puppy-dog eyes.

"No, and that's final." Then, laughing at herself, she added, "You can't play outside until you finish your homework."

"But, mum!" he whined sarcastically.

"Oi, don't you get cheeky with me! Don't think I won't slap you just because you're short."

He stuck out his tongue, but went back to the shelves, ducking the swat that she aimed at the back of his head.

"Alright, alright! I'm working on it, okay?" He fell into a sulky silence, but it only lasted a few moments before he was chattering again. "I suppose there'll always be time to look around when I'm older again. I'll know more, then, too. Though I guess it might be boring to me by that time, but there's always something more to see. We've got the whole Universe! You and that other bloke travel with me, right?"

"No, I'm the only one on the TARDIS right now," Donna corrected, sinking onto a couch. "Jack's just helping out until this mess gets sorted."

"Good," said the adolescent alien with a shudder. "Don't think I could stand being around him all the time."

"Yeah, you said earlier that he burns. What's that all about?" She hadn't noticed anything odd about the Captain, besides his archaic clothes and unnatural attractiveness. He certainly seemed to care about the Doctor, and from what little interaction she had seen between them, the older Doctor cared about him.

"I dunno," said the younger version, with a typically vague teenaged shrug. "It's just sort of . . .  _bright._  Like when you've been in the dark for hours and someone snaps on a light. Except not like that at all. It's kind of hard to explain in three dimensions."

"Yeah, that's another thing," said Donna, redirecting the conversation before Jack could walk in on a discussion of topics which he may or may not have had any knowledge of. "If you can only remember up to when you're fourteen, how can you speak English?"

"I'm fifteen," he said, shooting her a dirty look. "And I learned it. Well, Koschei and I did."

"Why?"

"Why not? It's interesting. And it drives our professors mad, which is always a plus."

It was such a quintessentially  _Doctor_  answer that she couldn't help but laugh. He grinned back, mischievous and carefree, and her smile faltered.

She could ask him anything. Anything at all, and he'd tell her. All the walls were down – had never been built, not for him. Oh, she wanted to ask, wanted to know – what was his school like? His friends? His teachers? His parents? Did he have any siblings? Did they bicker and argue and compete? Did he have a girlfriend? A boyfriend? A crush? A rival? Were they all as smart as he was? What was it like, his planet, his home?

What had he lost?

She could ask, but she wouldn't. It was one thing to push him when he was himself, to get him to open up for his own good. It was quite another to interrogate him when he was vulnerable, for the sake of satisfying her own curiosity.

For his part, he seemed quite content to ramble on without her prompting – nothing unusual there, except that he was actually  _saying_  things for once.

"So I finally got off of Gallifrey, then. Fancy that! Well, I always said I would, didn't I? Or rather, we said we would – Kosch and I. Do you know where he is now? No, never mind, he'd've changed his name. We both would've, I suppose. Anyway, he probably has his own TARDIS. Unless he's still back on Gallifrey, being President or something – Rassilon, he'd love that. He'd never make it in politics, though. I mean, I've seen really good politicians – my brother's one, but Koschei isn't. He's not good at acting. He thinks he is, but he's not. Whenever he's doing something devious he  _looks_  devious. Really devious people never look devious."

Donna hummed in tired agreement, recalling every wide, innocent grin his older self had given this week's armed guards as he cheerfully lied through his teeth, sometimes minutes before he blew their entire operation (whatever it was) to high heaven.

"I think this is everything that will be useful," said the Bringer of Hormones, dropping an armful of books onto the table. At the last moment, he snatched up the Jammy Dodgers with alien speed, barely saving them from getting crushed. "It shouldn't be hard for me to pick up," he said, shoving another biscuit into his mouth. "I took all the classes already, and they only failed me because I broke the virtual dissection system. And its backup."

She raised an eyebrow at him.

"Well it wasn't on purpose!" he protested defensively. She continued to stare him down, and he drooped. "It was maybe a little on purpose," he admitted. "Okay, maybe a lot, but I was bored!"

Any response she might have made was cut off when the door swung open, admitting Jack with a smaller, pointier man in tow.

"Right," said the smaller man, pushing in front of Jack. "So where's –" He stopped as he caught sight of the Doctor, and burst into laughter.

The time boy crossed his arms and glared, flushing bright red.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

Small-and-pointy sobered. Mostly.

"Sorry," he said, insincerely. "I'm Dr. Owen Harper. I'm your physician. Jack said you were feeling faint earlier, so I'm going to check you out."

"I'm fine," huffed the boy wonder, taking a step back as Owen approached him. "Why do I have a human physician, anyway?"

Owen froze for a moment, shooting a glance at Jack, who gave a minute shake of his head.

"Damned if I know," answered Owen, recovering effortlessly. "Ask yourself once you're older."

"Donna, I think Owen can handle this for now," said Jack, taking her by the elbow and leading her towards the door. "You should get some rest."

"But –" she protested, glancing over her shoulder to where the two doctors were glaring at each other with identical expressions of childish stubbornness.

"They're always like that," Jack assured her, steering her out of the room. "They'll be fine, and you're no use to anyone if you're falling asleep on your feet."

Any other day she might have protested – there were too many unanswered questions, and she was  _not_  going to be swept away by a smooth voice and a charming smile – but she was exhausted, and the Doctor had said that he trusted this man and his team. She could afford to take a brief nap. They were in the TARDIS, for goodness' sake.

What could possibly go wrong?

  
**  
**~~~

"Look, I'm going to examine you whether you like it or not," Owen informed the suddenly shrunken Doctor, who was glaring at him petulantly. "The only question is whether you get to keep your dignity in the process."  _Though it's a bit late for that,_  he thought, suppressing another snort of amusement. He was  _never_ going let the Doctor live this down. It more than made up for the tongue-lashing Jack had given him about falling asleep at his post.

"Fine," the Doctor agreed sulkily, uncrossing his arms so that Owen could run the medical scanner over him. The Doctor's gaze followed the device, his eyes lighting up with interest. "I forgot to ask, what year is it?"

"2008," Owen replied absently, scrolling through the results. Body temperature seemed fine . . . respiration and heartbeats were a bit fast, but within normal range, given the circumstances . . .

"I thought humans didn't have that type of scanner until the . . . twenty-fifth century, at least."

"Twenty-seventh." Brain activity was off the charts, as always. Hormone levels were strange, but not terribly dangerous, and Owen hardly knew was normal for an adolescent Time Lord.

"So it's an anachronism."

"Yeah. It came through the Rift." Malnutrition. Dammit all, he thought he had told the idiot to learn how to feed himself!

"What rift?"

"The spatial-temporal one which runs through the middle of Cardiff." It was actually quite satisfying to know more than he did, for once – or would have been, if Owen hadn't been so thoroughly disconcerted by the Doctor's young gaze. His curiosity was so innocent, his intelligence so bright and clear that Owen could hardly stand to look at it, knowing that it would – had – become the sort of shattered brilliance which could defeat armies and end worlds.

"There's no such thing as spatial-temporal rifts."

"Tell that to the one outside." He pulled back, setting the scanner down. "Besides being all short and specky, you're fine."

"Oi!" the Doctor protested, and even his high-pitched indignation was so youthful that it hurt – or would have, if Owen were the sort of sentimental sap who let stuff like that get to him. "I'm not specky, and I am definitely not short! Also, there is  _no such thing_  as spatial-temporal rifts. I mean, there could be, theoretically, but there would need to be a huge disruption in the fabric of time. Something completely impossible, like, I don't know – Gallifrey getting destroyed."

**Ouch.**

Owen wasn't the type to be overly sensitive, and he certainly wasn't the type to shower the Doctor with unnecessary and unwanted pity, but still . . . ouch.

"Alright, you caught me," he said, once he had recovered his voice. "It's not from a rift. You gave it to me."

"Oh. Why?"

"I guess you thought I'd like it," said Owen exasperatedly. "Why else would you give people stuff?"

"Obligation? Sabotage? Unsubtle hints? My brother once gave me a book on diplomacy because he thought I could use it to stay out of trouble and that would help his political career."

Owen snorted.

"How'd that work out for him?"

"I might have – possibly – set it on fire."

Owen gave a bark of laughter, but it was forced.

He couldn't look at the Doctor's sparkling eyes without recalling the shadows in which they would be/had been consumed.

 


	4. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor is oblivious, Jack asks questions he might not want to know the answers to, and Gwen is incredulous.

When Jack returned to the library, an Eluthian age advancer under his arm, his found Owen looking slightly ill. Theta, of course, was peacefully oblivious as only a fourteen-year-old boy could be, a gigantic tomb balanced on his knees as he absently ate his way through the pack of Jammy Dodgers.

"Everything alright?" he asked, keeping his tone carefully neutral.

"What? Yeah," said Owen, shaking himself. "Yeah, he's fine. Get him to eat something besides biscuits, but other than that . . . he's perfectly fine. I'll just go . . . do something. Somewhere else." He hurried out, and Jack was left frowning at his back.

"What was that about?" he asked Theta, setting the age advancer on the only end table which wasn't covered in books.

"What was what about?"

". . . never mind. Have you found anything yet?"

"Working on it," said Theta around a mouthful of Jammy Dodger. He swallowed. "Looks like I was wrong."

"About what?" questioned Jack, settling down beside the boy and peering over his shoulder. It was no use – the book was in Gallifreyan.

"I said that the reverse-aging thing didn't make any sense. I thought that once we got past our first regeneration we wouldn't have the information for childhood in our genes anymore, since our DNA changes and we wouldn't need it anymore, but it looks like it hangs around anyway. Stabilizes the rest of the structure."

"Alright. How does that help get you back to adulthood?"

"It doesn't. I just thought it was interesting."

Jack bit his tongue. Hard.

"What's the rush, anyway?" asked Theta, not noticing Jack's irritation. "It's not like I have anywhere to be, is it?"

"It's –" Jack stopped. What  _was_  the rush? They were in the TARDIS, in Torchwood, perfectly safe. There were no apocalypses to avert, as far as he knew. Theta didn't seem particularly aggrieved by the circumstances – in fact, he was happier than Jack had ever seen his older self.

"You're right," he said at last. "There is no rush. Take all the time you want."

Ianto arrived a few minutes later with a pair of jeans, a jacket, and several t-shirts, and Jack was presented with the rather surreal task of explaining a zipper to a young Time Lord.

"Think of it this way," he said to a bemused Ianto as Theta retreated into the wardrobe, clothes in hand, "would you know how to put on a toga?"

"I suppose not," Ianto conceded. He glanced sideways at Jack. "Care to tell me why Owen looked like he was about to cry, or should I just assume that he was suddenly crushed by the realization that he'll never be as smart as the Doctor?"

"And here I was thinking that it was he'll never be as sexy as me," said Jack, with a teasing grin. "But really, I have no idea. I guess seeing the Doctor like this just messed with his head."

"And it's not messing with yours?" questioned Ianto, raising an eyebrow.

Jack was saved from having to respond when Theta reappeared, staring down at his outfit.

"It's so . . . simple," he said, tugging at his shirt – TARDIS blue, Jack noted with amusement, though he did wonder why Theta had chosen it, given that he had never even seen the exterior of the TARDIS. "Dr. Harper was wearing clothes like these, but yours our different," he noted, running his gaze over Jack's suspenders and Ianto's suit. "Does it have something to do with rank?"

"Just personal preference," said Ianto. "People your age don't generally dress like I do, and people in this century don't generally dress like Jack does."

"I thought you liked the retro look."

"I do," replied Ianto, his eyes running up and down Jack in quite a different way than Theta's had. "I was just pointing out that it's very distinctive."

"Well, I'm a distinctive guy," said Jack, with leer which communicated exactly what was 'distinctive' about him.

Ianto's lips curved into an answering smile, undoubtedly with his own double entendre on his tongue, when they were interrupted by a very soft " _oh_ ".

They turned.

Theta was watching them with wide eyes, his mouth slightly open. He closed his mouth when the turned, his face slowly but surely flushing bright red. It occurred to Jack that he had no idea what sort of taboos Gallifrey had surrounding sex. Probably quite a few, judging by the older Doctor's many hang-ups.

Ianto, suddenly very pink himself, cleared his throat.

"I'll, um, go and brief Gwen and Toshiko, shall I?"

"Yeah, that's a good idea," Jack agreed, then turned back to Theta. "We'll get back to work."

"Sure," said Theta, swallowing hard. He avoided Jack's eyes as they settled onto the couch again.

Jack sighed internally.  _Was_  it messing with his head, seeing the Doctor like this? Maybe it should have been, but it wasn't. This wasn't really the Doctor, after all – except that it was. The Doctor before he had been carved up inside, before his brilliance had been sharpened into a weapon and his enthusiasm had become a shield. Before his childhood ended (whatever  _that_  meant) in a fight with . . . Koschei.

Jack shot a sidelong glance at Theta, who was once again oblivious to his presence as examined the complicated patterns of circles and lines, occasionally turning the book this way and that to get a better angle.

Jack had a suspicion already, a horrible suspicion gnawing at the back of his mind like acid.  _". . . something broke . . ."_  But he had to know. He  _had_  to.

"So," he said, keeping his voice carefully casual. "Who's Koschei?"

"He's my friend," answered Theta absently, not even looking up. "We're in the same year at the Academy."

"Just friends?" Jack questioned, trying to sound as offhand as he possibly could. Only idle curiosity. He didn't care about the answer at all; of course he didn't. It certainly wasn't something which lurked in the vault of his nightmares, ready to emerge, cackling, in the lonely, silent hours just before dawn . . . .

"'S complicated," Theta muttered, the tips of his ears turning pink.

Well  _that_  was the understatement of the century.

"What was your fight about?"

"Scientific ethics," Theta answered promptly, looking relieved at the change of topic. "Well, more just regular ethics, actually. Kosch developed this new sedative he wanted to test out. We usually use insects, initially, especially because his first attempts tend to kill things – not on purpose!" Theta added hastily, when Jack gave him a sharp look. "It just takes a while to get the proportions right.

"Anyway, there's this older student who's been messing with us lately –" His hand went to the back of his neck in a distinctly Doctor-like gesture of discomfort. "—well, him, mostly, because his family's not very prestigious, as these things go – but Kosch managed to get a hold of this person's –" He said something in Gallifreyan.

"It's a pet," he explained at Jack's blank look. "A baby pet. All sort of . . . soft and fluffy. And it hums when it's happy."

"Like a kitten," said Jack, starting to get a sick feeling about where this story was going.

". . . sure," agreed Theta, though he obviously had no idea was Jack was talking about. "Anyway, Kosch stole this pet and he was going to test the sedative on it. You have to understand," he said quickly, almost desperately. "This other student – he'd been really horribly to Kosch.  _Really_  horrible. And Kosch  _hates_  it when anyone treats him like he's inferior. I know I should have done something, but he gets really tetchy when I meddle in his business, and I thought he'd sort it on his own, which . . . I guess he did, technically . . . but he was going to  _kill_  his  _pet._  His  _baby_  pet, which is  _fluffy_  and  _cuddly_  and  _hums_. I mean, who  _does_ that?"

_A budding psychopath,_  Jack thought, but didn't say aloud. The Doctor always and probably always had wanted to think the best of everyone, particularly his friends. While in his older self that instinct was tempered by experience and suspicion and even a hint of bitterness, it was still strong in this younger, more naïve version.

"I should have talked to him," said Theta, and Jack hated the self-deprecating twist of the young Time Lord's lips, hated those first seeds of the self-loathing which would grow and warp and eat away at his soul, hated knowing who it was who planted them. "I understood why he was so upset, I really did, I just –" He shook his head. "I should have helped him. We could have some up with a different plan to get revenge, something that didn't involve killing. He doesn't have any other friends – neither do I, really – I didn't realize – I just yelled at him. He needed me, and I – I let him down."

Jack opened his mouth.

He closed it again.

What the  _hell_  was he supposed to say to this kid? Lie that he had done everything right? Recite some trite line about how everyone made mistakes? Tell him that it wasn't the end of the world, knowing full well that it  _was_ , a thousand years and a million complexities later?

Theta's single fight with fourteen-year-old Koschei had not turned his brilliant-but-strange friend into a sadistic, obsessive madman. It had, however, been the first step on the long a twisted road which led up to the (perhaps inevitable) final confrontation between the Doctor and the Master and all the heartbreaking, soul-crushing events surrounding it.

Theta seemed to conclude that Jack would not be spouting and words of wisdom, and stood with a small sigh.

"I need some air," he said, and was gone.

Jack heaved a sigh and let his head drop into his hands.

  
**  
**~~~

"De-aged?  _Seriously?_ "

Despite Ianto's sober explanation, Owen's slightly shaken confirmation, the TARDIS standing in Jack's office, and the daily basis on which she saw insane things, Gwen was have difficulty accepting this new turn of events.

"Seriously," Ianto said for the third time from his place behind Jack's desk. All four of them were crammed into the cluttered room, not even trying to pretend that they weren't waiting for someone to emerge from the large blue box which was wedged into one corner.

"How?" asked Toshiko. She kept shooting glances at the ship, obviously intrigued. It had been parked on the Plass last time the Doctor was here, and Jack had always hurried them along if they loitered to examine it more closely.

"I don't know. I don't think Jack knows, either. The Doctor probably would, but seeing as he's . . . incapacitated –"

"That's one way to put it," said Owen with a snort. He was leaning against the doorway of Jack's office, obviously trying to look nonchalant while staying as far away from the TARDIS as possible.

"Aw," Gwen cooed teasingly, leaping upon his discomfort. "Is Owen afwaid of the widdle baby Time Lord?"

"I'm not  _afraid_ ," snapped Owen, glaring. "It's just weird, okay? You'll see when you meet him."

"Ianto met him, and he seems fine," Toshiko pointed out.

"It is pretty weird," Ianto conceded.

"Thank you!"

". . . but not as weird as Owen thinks it is."

Gwen laughed as Owen scowled.

"And he doesn't have any of his memories?" questioned Toshiko. "He really thinks he's fourteen?"

"Not exactly. Jack explained what happened, so he knows he has amnesia . . . but functionally, yes, he's fourteen."

The questioning was abruptly put to an end by the creak of the TARDIS door, and Gwen found herself face-to-face – literally, he was about her height – with a very, very young Doctor.

Good lord, he was  _adorable_. The Doctor had always been rather cute, if caught at the right moment, but now – unruly chestnut hair fell down into huge brown eyes, giving him the look of an inquisitive fawn as he peered at her with startled curiosity. The resemblance was only reinforced by his fine, pale features and gangly limbs.

"Hello," she said, smiling.

"Hello," he replied, an answering smile spreading across his face. If that smile could be bottled and sold, Gwen was certain, it would be more addictive than crack cocaine, but no one would care because all the dealers would feel so damn good that they'd just give it away for free.

He stepped out of the TARDIS, and the smile dropped off his face. He turned grey, then white, then fell to the ground with a terrible, strangled whimper.

Dropping to her knees behind his crumpled form and feeling desperately for a pulse, Gwen did the only think she could think of.

"Jack!"

 


	5. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Doctor gets upset, Donna gets an education in telepathy, and Jack gets angry.

Jack was up and running before Gwen's voice stopped reverberating through the TARDIS. Within seconds he was in his office, stepping over and around the Doctor – Theta – oh, fuck it – so he could crouch down in front of him.

"Theta?" he said, trying to keep the panic out of his voice. Theta was white as a sheet and shaking, his eyes wide and unseeing as he gasped for breath, trying to curl in on himself.

"No one even touched him; he just collapsed –"

"He was fine; I swear he was fine –"

Jack made a sharp gesture, and his team fell silent.

"Theta," he repeated, more firmly. Slowly, Theta's frightened gaze focused on him. "Tell me what's wrong."

Theta began to speak – in Gallifreyan. Jack stopped him with a gentle squeeze of his shoulder.

"English," he reminded him. Theta sucked in a breath, struggling to sit up. Jack helped him patiently.

"She – she was singing," said Theta haltingly. "She was singing so loudly – so loudly that I couldn't hear – couldn't hear the silence – but then I stepped out and I – I could hear it." Something sparked in his gaze, fear turning to fury, and he jerked away from Jack's hand.

"What's going on?" he demanded angrily, leaping to his feet and backing away from the TARDIS. "What aren't you telling me?"

"I'll explain," said Jack, though he had no intention whatsoever of doing so. He stepped forward, concerned as Theta continued to tremble. "Let's just go back inside –"

"No!" growled Theta, shoving him away with enough force to send him sprawling. The older Doctor never, ever used the full extent of his strength against any human – Theta apparently had no such reservations, and Jack gave a grunt of pain as he collided with his desk.

"You!" said Theta, pointing at Owen, who jerked his hand away from the gun which he had reached for automatically. "You said there was a rift – and there is; I can feel it – but how – how can there be a rift? How can everything be so – so quiet and so loud? And you . . ." He turned back to Jack, faltering now, his flash of rage sputtering out as tears began to fill his eyes. "You were asking about Koschei. Why did you keep asking about him?" The tears began to spill over, running down his young, perfect face. "What does – what does Kosch have to do with –"

Theta dissolved into sobs.

  
**  
**~~~

Donna knew that something was wrong the instant she woke up. She didn't waste any time in pulling on a dressing gown and following the TARDIS' guidance to the console room.

She stepped out the door just in time to see the Doctor swipe the back of his hand across his eyes in a heartbreakingly childlike gesture. But of course he was just a child, and sobbing his hearts out – while Captain Jack and his bloody team just stood there looking stunned, the useless lumps.

She strode forward and wrapped the teary boy in her arms, glaring daggers at said useless lumps, who as least had the decency to look guilty.

"Shh, it's okay," she murmured, rubbing his shaking back as he clung to her. "It's okay, honey."

He gave a particularly violent sob which she interpreted as,  _'no, it's not, it's not okay and it won't ever be okay and no one in the whole entire Universe understands and_ _ **I hate my life**_ _' –_ which, given that it was the Doctor, was at least somewhat true, but his younger self wasn't supposed to know that.

"Come on, sweetheart, why don't we go back to the TARDIS?" she suggested, shifting so that her arm was around his shoulders and she could gently steer him back to his ship. She didn't know what had happened, but she  _did_  remember being fourteen. Whether this was some fit of teenage angst or something of more Doctor-like proportions, what he needed was a good cry, some sleep, and a decent meal when he woke up.

She led him down several unfamiliar corridors according to the TARDIS' prompting at the back of her mind, and finally stopped at a dimly lit room which she assumed was his. It was sparsely but comfortably furnished, cluttered with books, bits of machinery, and discarded clothes.

He allowed her to tuck him in without fuss, despite the fact that he probably didn't even recognize the room. He was half-asleep already, but he still gave the occasional hiccup or sniffle, so she lingered for a moment with her hand on his hair, ignoring the slight pang of not-quite-recollection which it gave her.

"That's right," she murmured softly, stroking his hair back from his face. He looked so, so fragile – all his bones so thin and delicate and close to the surface. She kept her touches feather-light, half afraid he would snap under her hands. "That's right, darling, just sleep. It'll be okay."

Eventually, his breathing evened out, and she stepped away, closing the door silently behind her. Turning, she found the kitchen just across the hall.

Captain Jack was waiting for her, an apologetic look on his face and a mug in his hand.

"Coffee?" he offered. "Ianto made it; it's the best stuff this side of the fortieth century. Or I can make tea, if you'd prefer."

"No, I'll make the tea," she proclaimed. " _You_  sit down and tell me what happened."

He obeyed.

"Time Lords are telepathic," he began. "Telepathic races are connected with other members of their species – all of them, all the time. They have closer bonds with their families or spouses or good friends, but they have  _some_  bond with everyone. Like background noise."

"Sounds like a nasty headache, to me," Donna commented, setting the water to boil.

"Yeah, but it's not. They've had it ever since they were born. It's like – do you live by yourself? When you're not travelling with the Doctor, I mean?"

"No, I live with my mum and granddad," answered Donna, a little suspiciously. "But what's that got to do with –"

"Just bear with me. They make little noises around the house, right? Even if they're not doing something loud. You might not even notice, usually, but they do – just enough so that you can tell they're home."

"Yeah, sure," agreed Donna. She knew those little noises by heart – footfalls below her bedroom, the almost imperceptible hum of her mother's daytime television, her granddad's cheerful, off-key humming . . . .

"That's what it's like for telepaths," concluded Jack. "Not noise, really, just a background hum, to let them know they're not alone."

"Okay, so it's a friendly background noise. And?"

"And the Doctor doesn't have it anymore," said Jack, his mouth grim and his eyes sad. "His planet's gone, and all the people with it."

"And he can feel it, inside his head?"

Jack gave a tight shrug.

"Ever wake up in an empty house?"

Donna shivered.

"Okay," she said, moving the bubbling water off of the stove and trying to drag her mind away from cold floors and silent rooms and what it must be like to have that feeling inside your head, all the time. "So the younger Doctor felt that. Why'd it take him so long?"

"The TARDIS was protecting him. You know she's sentient, right?"

"Yeah. Translates things, makes your room the way you like it, hides the kitchen when she's angry."

The TARDIS' hum took on a slightly amused tone.

"Exactly," said Jack, giving the wall beside him a fond pat. "And she's even more connected with the Doctor, so she knew what happened to him. She was singing to him, loud enough that he didn't realize something was wrong until he stepped outside."

Donna glared.

"You knew all this and you still let him go outside?"

"No!" Jack protested vehemently, anger flashing in his eyes. "I would  _never_  endanger the Doctor like that!"

Donna examined him over the top of her teacup, taking in his white knuckles and his hot indignation, and recalling the almost possessive way he had looked at the Doctor when she first met him.

"Alright, Captain Flash, I believe you. No need to get your knickers in a twist."

"No, but you're right, I should have known," said Jack with a grimace, slumping back in his chair and running a hand through his hair in an eerily familiar gesture. "I knew he was telepathic, and he's said, before, about the silence in his head – but he never made a lot of sense at those times; I never thought it was so literal . . . ."

Donna, curiosity piqued, opened her mouth to question him further on 'those times,' but he cut her off.

"He's asleep?"

"Yeah," she answered, deciding to let it go – for now. "He must be exhausted, poor thing. I don't think he's slept properly in weeks." She dropped into the seat across from the Captain, tracing the pattern on her mug with her finger. It was a crest bearing the name 'Hogwarts' and some Latin motto, which had corrections scribbled on it in red ink. She remembered the name, vaguely – some castle from some movie about wizards.

"I was going to call you," she said abruptly, breaking the silence. "Before all the de-aging stuff, I mean. I was thinking about it, anyway." She took a sip of her tea and spared a glanced across the table. Jack was watching her, looking concerned but not surprised.

"You said to call if he wasn't coping – I don't think he ever copes, not really, but lately . . . he's been like a ghost."

"Martha told me about his daughter," Jack offered.

"Yeah," said Donna with a shudder. "That was . . . awful. I was so sure he was going to shoot that man – that General Cobb." She hated that stupid, bitter old man. Hated him for his senseless, pointless violence, for cutting Jenny's bright young life so horribly short, for shattering the Doctor all over again when he had just begun to open up.

"I would have," said Jack, too casually, his jaw tight.

"Me too," she agreed without thinking. Jack's lips twisted into a horrible, mirthless smile.

"No, you wouldn't have," he stated.

"No, I wouldn't have," Donna agreed with a sigh. "I couldn't have."

The Doctor could have, though. Oh, he said he never would, and he meant it, but she remembered the Racnoss. She had been terrified of him, once, and with good reason.

"He seemed fine after that, though," she continued, shaking herself back to the present. "Almost  _too_  fine, like he was in denial or something. But then there was the Library, and then Midnight, right after, and . . . I dunno, something just sort of . . . cracked."

"Let me guess," Jack sighed. "He doesn't eat. He doesn't sleep. His coordination's dropping off, probably because he's shaking so badly all the time, but he keeps smiling and moving and babbling about nothing as if he's trying to distract you from the fact that he's about to fall over."

"Yeah, that's it," Donna confirmed. "And he's more skittish than my friend's Chihuahua; jumps a foot in the air every time I sneeze. I guess anyone would be, after what happened on Midnight, but still . . ."

"What happened on Midnight?" asked Jack sharply, a frown creasing his brow.

Donna explained. She tried to keep it as brief as possible, knowing that the Doctor probably wouldn't want her to relate all the gory details, but couldn't resist adding some of her own commentary here and there. By the time she was finished, Jack looked absolutely livid.

"Shit," he hissed, running a hand over his face. There were a few moments of tense silence, then – " _Shit!_ " – his fist collided with the table, making their drinks rattle. He surged to his feet and began to pace the length of the kitchen.

"People never fucking  _learn_  – a thousand years later and we still turn on everything we don't understand! Those fucking  _cowards_ , if I ever get my hands on them –"

"Yeah, me too," said Donna, a bit more loudly than necessary, cutting across his rant. She would have liked to have torn those people up one side and down the other for what they did to her best friend – and from the look on Jack's face, his tearing would have been rather less figurative than hers.

"But you listen to me, Captain Jack Harkness," she said firmly, getting to her feet. "Those people are a million miles away and a thousand years in the future. Right here, right now, we have a fifteen-year-old Time Lord who just found out he has no home to go back to, and later we're going to have a nine-hundred-year-old one who's trying to slowly kill himself. What do you propose we do about it?"

Jack deflated, sinking back into his chair and dropping his head into his hands.

"I don't know," he sighed. "I'm sorry, Donna, I just don't know. When he got like this before he stayed at Torchwood for a while – and he's welcome to do that again, but I don't think he will. Not after what happened last time."

"What happened last time?" asked Donna, surprised. She had been there when they parted, last time, and they had seemed to be on good terms – better than good.

"Just that plague – I didn't tell him about it right away, didn't want him involved, so the cure didn't get out as quickly as it might have. If it was anyone's fault it was mine, but you know how he gets. Made up some bullshit about how he had become a liability, and you know the rest."

Donna sighed, picking up her tea. It had gone cold. She tipped it into the sink and watched it swirl down the drain. Quite suddenly, she wanted to cry. Not just to cry but to sob and scream and throw things, to curse the Universe which had been so cruel to the best man she had ever known, that wonderful, dazzling genius, her best friend – she let out a small sob, and Jack was at her side in an instant.

"Donna," he said, grasping her by the shoulders and looking at her earnestly. "Donna, don't give up on him. You said it yourself, he's strong. And he's not alone – he's got you, and me, and my team, and so many other people – we are  _not_  going to let him fade away."

There was a note in his voice which made those words more than a promise, which made them a declaration of how the Universe would be, and she wanted to believe him. But she had heard that note before, had heard it in the Doctor's voice only to watch him try and fail and break just that little bit more, and she knew that it was just an old man's way of reassuring the children. Still, she could see that Jack was reassuring himself as much as her, so she nodded.

Someone cleared their throat.

They both turned to see the young Ianto Jones standing in the doorway, looking slightly uncomfortable.

"Ms. Noble," he greeted with a nod, before turning to Jack. "Sir, we've had a call from up in Kington. It sounds like a routine artifact pick-up, but it may take a few hours. I thought perhaps you ought to stay here, seeing as the Doctor's most comfortable around you – and Ms. Noble, of course."

"Yeah, I think that's best," Jack agreed tiredly. "Thank you, Ianto."

"Not at all." Ianto turned to go, but hesitated, turned back. "Jack . . ."

"He'll be alright," said Jack firmly. Something which Donna couldn't identify flickered in Ianto's troubled gaze, but he nodded.

"Of course he will."

He turned again, and was gone.

 


	6. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Donna chooses sandwich fixings, Jack chooses his words carefully, and the Doctor chooses to do something about this whole situation.

Theta slept.

Hours passed, as Jack and Donna chatted half-heartedly, each tossing out the occasional idea only to be shot down.

"We could call Martha –"

"Absolutely not! That girl has moved on, and we're not going to ruin that."

"But if it helped the Doctor –"

"It wouldn't. You should see how guilty he looks just  _talking_  about her."

"Okay, okay . . . ."

They descended into silence.

"If he were human I'd say we could get that doctor of yours to prescribe him something . . ."

"Even if we could come up with something, he'd never allow it. I don't blame him, either – being able to think clearly is his only defense most of the time."

"Yeah . . ."

More silence.

"Okay, here's what we do. We hit him over the head and tie him to chair. Then we kidnap a psychologist . . ."

Jack laughed, but it was desperate and hollow, the sort of laughter heard in foxholes and hospitals.

Lunch, eventually. Jack wasn't particularly hungry, but Donna insisted. It was a good thing she did, as it turned out, because no sooner had she pulled the sandwich fixings from the fridge than there was a soft noise from the doorway.

Theta hovered uncertainly just outside the room, his eyes huge and haunted in his pale, thin face. His clothes were rumpled from sleeping in them and his hair was sticking up at odd angles, making him look younger than ever. He didn't say a word as Donna ushered him into the kitchen. He allowed her to push him into a chair and then drew his knees up to his chest, wrapping his long arms around his legs.

"What would you like on your sandwich?" Donna asked briskly.

"Not hungry," Theta muttered.

"Well, you're going to eat something anyway, so what do you want?"

Shrug.

"Right, I'll choose, then. Is ham okay?"

Shrug.

"Ham it is."

Theta remained curled in on himself, his eyes darting towards Jack and then away again. Jack held his tongue with some difficulty, knowing that he would talk when he was ready. His eyes continued to skitter around the room. Table, trainers, Donna, ceiling, Jack, table again. Jack, table. Floor. Jack. Table.

"Sorry," he said at last, so low that if Jack hadn't been listening for it he wouldn't have heard.

"For what?"

"Pushing you."

"Oh," said Jack. In his worry for the Doctor, he had honestly forgotten. "That's alright. I shouldn't have scared you."

Shrug.

"Now don't go thinking this is a regular thing," warned Donna, placing a plate in front of Theta. "Once you're grown again you have to make your own meals."

Theta unfolded slightly and poked at the sandwich, peeling the bread back to scrutinize the contents.

"Oi! You're supposed to eat it, not examine it. It's not poisoned."

Theta put the bread back and unfolded a bit more, taking a bite.

"Ushas tried to poison me once," he said, obviously trying to regain some sort of equilibrium. Jack wondered idly if all Time Lords were insane, or just the ones who hung around the Doctor. "She said it wasn't personal, and it probably wasn't, knowing her, but Kosch – Kosch was –" He choked on his words and dropped the sandwich, burying his face in his knees.

"Oh, honey –" Donna went to comfort him, but he was suddenly on his feet, scrubbing the tears from his eyes and trying to put on a brave face.

"No, I'm okay," he said, unconvincingly. "I just – I need to know. Please." His eyes sought Jack's, and Jack knew what he was going to ask before he even opened his mouth. "What happened to Koschei?"

"Theta –"

"I know you know!" Theta snapped, angry again. "I can handle it – I can definitely handle it better than not knowing, so just tell me!"

Jack sighed. He couldn't tell him the truth, even if some tiny, spiteful part of him wanted to.  _"Your best friend, who you seem to have a very confused crush on, turned into a sadistic, murdering psychopath who nearly destroyed planet Earth and everything you care about, and then destroyed_ _ **you**_ _by dying in your arms."_  Yeah, that would go over well.

"He died," he said instead, very carefully. "About a year ago. He was shot."

Theta had to have known that he was dead, but he still staggered a little at the revelation, his face going even paler.

"Was I there?" he questioned, his voice as thin and frail as the rest of him. "When he – when it happened?"

"Yes," was all Jack could say, the memory of the Doctor's anguished howl ringing in his ears. In all the Doctor's time at Torchwood he had never made another sound like that, and Jack prayed to any Power which was listening that he never would.

"Okay," said Theta faintly, sinking back into his chair. "I – I want to go home."

"Shh." Donna was at his side again, crouching beside his chair and rubbing his back soothingly. "Deep breaths, honey. You're okay."

Theta trembled and gasped for air while Jack looked on, feeling helpless. He didn't know how to deal with this younger Doctor, more whole and yet so much more fragile. He bore none of the scars which his older self did, but he had none of the defenses, either, and his fresh wounds were bleeding freely.

Thankfully, Donna seemed to know her way around a distraught child, and managed to calm Theta before too long. She even coaxed him into choking down a few more bites of his sandwich before he pushed the plate away. He met Jack's eyes, and there was a new glint in his gaze, the predecessor of the Doctor's iron resolve.

"I need to get my memories back."

  
**  
**~~~

"So?" demanded Owen, as soon as they were piled into the SUV.

"I don't know," Ianto sighed, easily seeing through Owen's anger to the worry underneath, despite the fact that he couldn't actually  _see_  him without taking his eyes off the road. "All Jack would say is that he's going to be alright."

"Fuck."

It wasn't the most sophisticated of analyses, but, as usual with Owen, what it lacked in eloquence it made up for in accuracy. They all knew that Jack only resort to that desperate mantra when he couldn't bear to contemplate the alternative.

"Did you see him?" questioned Gwen. "The Doctor, I mean."

"No. I would I assume he was sleeping." Ianto had seen enough, though. He had seen the grimness in Jack's eyes, the tears on Ms. Noble's face, and the thinness of the Doctor's frame which was not merely the result of his de-aging.

"He's malnourished," said Owen, echoing Ianto's thoughts. "I saw it when I checked him over."

"That doesn't mean anything," protested Gwen, twisting in the passenger seat to address Torchwood's doctor. "He always forgets to eat, no matter how he's feeling."

"Yeah, but he's got someone to remind him, hasn't he?" Owen pointed out. "You can't tell me that Donna woman doesn't seem like the type to push food at him."

"You don't suppose something happened?" asked Toshiko worriedly from behind Ianto. "There was that phone call a while back . . ."

"What phone call?"

"The one from Martha Jones," Gwen said. "It was a bit after the Atmos stuff, remember? Jack was all broody for days."

"You're being awfully quiet up there, Ianto," said Owen, leaning forward between the seats. "Wouldn't happen to know anything, would you? Nothing Jack let slip in a moment of . . . weakness?"

"Yes, Owen," said Ianto sarcastically, "because that's exactly what Jack and I talk about in bed. 'Hey, Jack, you know that alien bloke who you're completely in love with? Well I was just wondering what the latest update on his tenuous mental health is.'"

"Ianto . . ." said Gwen, shooting him a concerned look.

"It's fine," he assured her, truthfully. "I'm fine with it. But it's not something we talk about."

"Of course it's not. Really, Owen would it kill you to  _try_  not to be a total prick?"

And then they were off again, leaving Ianto to his driving and his thoughts.

He had asked, actually. Not in bed, and not about the Doctor, specifically, but he had inquired as to the contents of the phone call which had left Jack snappish and preoccupied. Jack had said that it wasn't his place to tell, and Ianto had let it lie. He had seen the shadows in Jack's eyes, though, had felt the desperation in his hands and his mouth, had heard him mutter in his sleep,  _"no, Doctor, please, hold on, don't do this to me,_ _ **breathe**_ _"_ —

Ianto knew fear when he saw it.

  
**  
**~~~

They returned to the Hub to find Jack and the Doctor practically toe-to-toe, glaring at each other.

"No," Jack was saying. "Absolutely not."

Owen exchanged a glance with Toshiko, but she just shrugged.

"Why not?"

"Because it's not safe!" snarled Jack. Owen had seen much older men cower under the burning gaze to which he was treating the Doctor, but the Doctor held his ground unflinchingly. "Even if it doesn't blow your head off –"

"It won't blow my head off," said the Doctor with a roll of his eyes.

"—do you have any idea what that thing would do to you?" Jack continued as if he hadn't been interrupted.

"Yes, I do. It would dig through layers of my conscious mind and release anything that's been suppressed – like  _my memories._ "

"Fuck," Owen choked out, missing a step as he ascended the platform towards where the two of them were arguing. Beside him, Toshiko had faltered as well.

"He can't be serious," she stated, obviously having come to the same conclusion Owen had.

"He's the Doctor," pointed out Ianto from behind them. "More or less."

"Fair point," Owen conceded, and then leapt up the remaining stairs two at a time. "Look, kid, you can't use that thing," he said, gesturing at the mind probe which he could now see was partly set up beside his desk.

The Doctor rolled his eyes again, crossing his arms. Owen wondered if he realized how astoundingly adolescent it made him look.

"I've looked into the Untempered Schism. I have all of time and space inside my head – and I've sat through seven years of Borusa's lectures. I hardly think that one mind probe is going to succeed where the combined efforts of all of Time Lord society has failed – namely, in reducing my brain to mush."

"Okay, forget the brain exploding bit," said Owen. "That thing hurts like hell."

"Untempered Schism," the Doctor repeated, as if that was supposed to mean something. "I think I can handle it."

"You ran from the Untempered Schism," said Jack, who apparently knew what the hell he was talking about.

"Yeah, well." The Doctor set his jaw. "I'm going to be strapped down this time."

"Oh, for god's sake – Donna!" Jack turned to address the redhead who had just emerged from the TARDIS, with fresh clothes and damp hair. "Tell Theta that he can't use something which might blow his head off."

"It won't blow my head off!" the Doctor protested, sounding just as exasperated as Jack did. "I have low blood pressure and moderate telepathic ability; I'll be  _fine_."

"Okay,  _you,_  be quiet," ordered Donna, pointing at the Doctor. "The last time you told me you'd be fine, you nearly got killed. You," she turned to Owen, ignoring the Doctor's sulky glare. "You're a proper doctor; what is that thing and will it blow his head off?"

"It's a mind probe," said Owen, inexplicably uncomfortable under her fierce gaze. "The last couple times –" He caught Jack's look, and changed direction mid-sentence. "Judging from past experience, it'd probably be safe for him, especially because we know for certain that he's got suppressed memories. It'll hurt like a bitch, though."

"So does resetting a bone," the Doctor pointed out through gritted teeth. "You'd do it anyway."

"Because that would be necessary," Jack growled.

" _So is this!_ "

Everyone fell silent, staring. The Doctor visibly tried to regain his composure, drawing air in carefully controlled breaths.

"I have a hole inside my head," he said, obviously trying to keep his voice even and almost succeeding. "A hole where everyone I've ever known or seen or heard about it supposed to be. That machine is the fastest way for me to remember why."

"You don't want to know," said Jack, very softly.

"Probably not," the Doctor agreed, swallowing hard as he met the captain's eyes. "But I need to."

Jack was silent for a long moment. They all held their breaths, and Owen wasn't sure what he was hoping for. On one hand, he couldn't pretend that the thought of using that torture device on the Doctor was anything but sickening. On the other, the Doctor's amnesia was fucking disturbing, even more so now that his young, bright eyes were shining with the same pain which the older Doctor usually kept carefully understated.

Jack nodded.

"We'll do it."

 


	7. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Donna chats with Ianto, the Doctor bickers with Owen, and everyone gets the worst of it over with – maybe.

Donna stood on the balcony, sipping her tea and watching with a mixture of amusement and worry as Jack and Dr. Harper attempted to piece together the mind probe thing. It was supposed to be a simple task, and probably would have been, if not for the mini-Doctor's dubious assistance. Going by the increasingly rude gestures and rising voices, she gave Dr. Harper ten minutes before he gave into the temptation to stick his tongue out right back.

Ianto Jones sidled up beside her, giving her a small nod in greeting as he poured himself a mug of coffee.

"Ms. Noble."

"Oh, call me Donna. So . . ." She leaned in conspiratorially and nodded towards the knot of testosterone and frustration below them. "You and the Captain?" She only had a hunch, and wouldn't have been surprised by a sputtered denial, but she also wasn't surprised by the answer he did give.

"Yes," Ianto agreed, the slight flush in his ears belying his mild tone. "The Captain and I."

"Honestly,  _all_  the good men!"

Ianto chuckled softly.

"There's always the Doctor," he suggested, half-jokingly.

"That skinny streak of nothing?" scoffed Donna. "As if! Anyway, I don't think he swings that way."

Ianto froze for a moment, then, very carefully,

"The Doctor has never returned Jack's feelings." It was almost a question, and Donna felt a stab of pity for the young man. The Doctor was like the sun, eclipsing everyone around him and leaving after-images long after he departed. It wasn't his fault – he didn't even seem to realize it, bless him – but it made it difficult for the people who were left with the aftermath.

"Na, 'course not," Donna said, giving Ianto a gentle shove. "But have you seen the way he touches his ship?"

That startled a burst of laughter out of the quiet man, and she grinned. He opened his mouth to say something, but they were both distracted when Dr. Harper's voice floated up to them.

"Just  _don't touch it_!"

They turned to watch the adolescent Doctor bristle at the command. Donna exchanged a glance with Ianto while Dr. Harper turned his back. The Doctor glanced around to check that Jack was also occupied.

_Wait for it . . ._

Poke.

Donna and Ianto burst into muffled laughter. Owen snapped his head around to glare suspiciously at the Time Tot, who stared back innocently.

"Y'know, I think he'd have done that even if he weren't all shrunken," Donna commented.

"I don't doubt it," Ianto replied, a smile tugging at his lips.

Donna smiled back. They fell into amiable silence, and she glanced out over the room. Mad, this place was – but then, it would be, wouldn't it? The Doctor would never feel at home anywhere  _normal_ , and he did have a home here, of sorts. It was obvious in the way Gwen ruffled his hair as she passed, the worried edge to Jack's scolding, the softness of Ianto's gaze.

"God, he's an idiot."

"Sorry?" questioned Ianto, looking bemused by the apparent non sequitur.

"The Doctor," Donna elaborated.

". . . I don't follow."

"He acts so  _lonely_ , when all this time he's got a whole group of friends to come back to. And I get it, I do – it's not quite the same as having a family and a planet and people who can keep up with all his alien babble, but you lot, you really care about him, don't you?"

"Yeah," Ianto said, thoughtfully. "We really do."

Donna smiled again, new hope rising in her heart. He was going to be okay, her Spaceman – and that  _was_  a promise, to him and to herself. All he needed was a reminder of what he still had.

He'd just been away from home for too long.

~~~

The probe was ready.

Gwen felt sick to her stomach. Owen's hands were shaking visibly as he established a baseline for the Doctor's vitals. Toshiko was looking anywhere but the probe. Out of the corner of her eye, Gwen could see Donna biting back a thousand protests. Ianto was hovering awkwardly, his eyes on Jack, who kept twitching as if to reach out to the young Time Lord beside him and pulling back at the last moment. They were all nervous and filled with dread as they stared at the probe, which looked just as horrific as they all knew it was.

The Doctor, looking at the same probe with the same knowledge, looked calmer than he had since he first stepped out of the TARDIS.

For the first time, Gwen wondered what the hell sort of a place the Doctor's planet had been.

"You'll have to ask questions," Toshiko was reminding Jack. "It will direct his thoughts. It's a whole web of memories and not a single unit, so we'll have to pull them out bit by bit, but one thing should lead to another fairly easily. Start with most recent things and work your way back – the more potent the better. If he remembers the big things, the details will fill in automatically, and eventually it will gain its own momentum."

Jack nodded, his jaw tight, then turned to the Doctor.

"Ready?" he asked, his voice forcibly even.

"Ready enough," the Doctor replied. There was a certain tightness in his voice which belied his outward composure, but he didn't hesitate before sitting in the chair. "Well?" he prompted, jerking his head at the restraints.

"You  _sure_  you want to do this?" questioned Gwen, even as Jack gritted his teeth and fastened the straps around the Doctor's wrists, even thinner and more delicate than usual.

The Doctor gave her a Look.

"Alright," Gwen conceded with a half-hearted smile, crouching down beside him. "But we'll all be right here, okay? And Owen will be watching to make sure that you're not in any danger."

The Doctor met her eyes, and suddenly he looked young and frightened and horribly lost. His eyes darted away from her, over her shoulder, seeking someone else.

"Donna?"

It was nearly a whisper, but the redhead was at his side in an instant, practically shoving Gwen out of the way. Gwen stepped back, not offended – Donna seemed to care for the Doctor quite fiercely, and in his confused state he had apparently imprinted on her like a baby chick.

"I'm right here, sweetheart," said Donna, taking his hand gently. "I'll be right here the whole time."

"I'm scared," said the Doctor, in the tone of someone revealing a shameful secret. Gwen bit her lip to hold back tears, and Donna's grip tightened on his hand.

"I know," said Donna, tears in her eyes and her voice. "It's going to be okay."

He nodded, swallowing hard, and then put on a brave face once more, meeting Jack's eyes and nodding once.

"Do it," Jack ordered, looking as if he was signing his own death warrant.

Toshiko began to type.

  
**  
**~~~

Theta tensed the instant the probe hummed to life, his hand clenching around Donna's. It had to be painful for her, but she didn't pull away, and Jack spared a moment of gratitude towards her before turning his attention to doing the last thing he wanted to: digging up the Doctor's memories.

Start with the most recent, Tosh had said. The more potent, the better.

"What happened on Midnight?"

"What?" Theta gasped out in confusion, but then he twitched, gasped, painful recognition flashing in his eyes. "It – it took my voice! It – and they were going to – they were  _humans_!"

"Safe," said Owen tensely.

Theta was shuddering and gasping in the wake of his revelation, but Jack gritted his teeth and pushed on. The faster they got this over with, the better.

"Who's Jenny?"

"Who's –" Another jerk, another gasp, and this one sounded more like a sob. "She was my  _daughter!_  She could've been – my fault, too much like me –"

"Safe," said Owen, over Theta's panting breaths and Donna's attempts to soothe him.

"His recall's speeding up," said Toshiko. "Gaining momentum. Another push or two and it should be self-sufficient."

"Who shot the Master?"

Now the sound was undeniably a sob. Jack clenched his fists at his sides, his fingernails digging into his palms.

"I didn't see her – please – Kosch –" His frantic babbling shifted into Gallifreyan as he continued to jerk and twist against his trappings, his eyes glazing over.

"That's it!" exclaimed Toshiko. "That's enough; the rest will come on its own."

Jack turned away, shutting his eyes and fighting down bile as Theta continued to whimper his way back to being the Doctor. Jack knew, objectively, that much of the pain was physical, a result of the brutal mind probe which was tearing through the Time Lord's consciousness. Not all the Doctor's memories were as heartbreaking as the ones which Jack had invoked with his questions – there were moments of triumph and beauty, of love and brilliance – but Jack still couldn't shake the thought that  _it shouldn't hurt him to remember who he is._

Ianto's hand was on his shoulder, gentle and reassuring. It gave Jack the strength to focus on reality again, and he registered that the fragments of sentences which escaped Theta were English again – the Queen's English, with the Doctor's London accent, not Theta's odd, alien inflections.

"I can't – not enough time – never – I'm sorry –" He was weeping openly, now, and so was Donna as she grasped both his hands in hers.

"It's okay, honey; it's going to be okay. It will be over soon."

"It's almost finished," said Tosh, obviously struggling to remain composed herself.

"You hear that? Not long now."

Theta – or was it the Doctor, by now? – gave a few more gasping sobs, and then, quite suddenly, went silent and still. He was still tense with pain, but his breathing was controlled and his expression blank.

"Shut it off, Toshiko," he ordered.

She obeyed immediately.

"Get me out of this thing," snapped the Doctor – and it  _was_  the Doctor, now. That much was obvious from the authority in his voice and the darkness in his eyes. Jack felt ready to collapse in relief.

"Oi! Watch who you're bossing about, Spaceman," said Donna, but there was no real venom in it, and she went to work on the straps immediately, while Owen moved forward to pull the headpiece off.

"Oh, I wouldn't dare," replied the Doctor with a weak smile as he stood shakily. "I was talking to that lot. Hello again!" He gave a cheery wave, which was rather ruined by the fact that he was wiping tears from his face as he did so.

"Are you alright?" asked Jack, finding his voice at last.

"Yeah, 'course I am," said the Doctor lightly. "Always." He glanced down at himself, ignoring the simultaneous eye rolls and exasperated looks of everyone else in the room. "Blimey, this is a bit embarrassing."

"No shit," snorted Owen, apparently back to finding the situation amusing now that the Doctor had regained his memories.

"I think you're adorable," Gwen offered, and the Doctor winced.

"Yeah, really not helping," he said, grimacing.

"She's right," said Donna, a teasing smirk on her face. "You look like a great gangly teenager as it is; this age suits you much better."

"Yes, ha ha, very funny," grumbled the Doctor. He ignored Gwen and Donna's giggles, holding his hand out in front of him and flexing it experimentally. It was trembling, Jack noted with a jolt.

"Doctor," said Owen, with a worried tone beneath his voice which told Jack that he had seen the tremors, too, "as much as I'd like to sit around and make fun of you, we should really make sure that there haven't been any adverse affects. Take a look at these readings."

The Doctor moved to peer over Owen's shoulder, reaching automatically for his brainy specs before realizing that he wasn't wearing his suit.

"Look fine to me," he said. "But like I keep telling you, I'm not a medical doctor. I don't know much more than you do when it comes to what they're supposed to be."

"And you're  _sure_  you feel alright?" checked Jack, moving forward – only to jerk back in alarm when the Doctor rounded on him, eyes blazing.

"Yes,  _Jack_ ," the Doctor snarled. "I'm absolutely alright! Why wouldn't I be? I was just in an exceptionally vulnerable state of mind, but that's alright, that's perfectly alright, because I was among friends, right? People I could  _trust._  Not anyone who would take advantage of my altered mental state to, oh, I don't know, go  _fishing._ "

Jack stumbled back as though struck, feeling the bottom drop out of his stomach.  _Oh, shit. Shit shit shit._ If he had thought for even a second he would have realized that his prying wouldn't be viewed as anything but a betrayal – the Doctor was so, so private – but he hadn't thought, he had just reacted, had just wanted to know, needed to know –

"I'm sorry, Doc," he said, ignoring the confused looks which his team was exchanging as the Doctor turned away from him, fuming. "I didn't mean to –" He jerked to the side, barely avoiding the glass paperweight which flew past his ear, hurled by the Doctor's deceptively skinny arm.

It shattered against the far wall amongst a chorus of shocked exclamations.

"Doctor!"

"Shit!"

"The  _fuck_?"

The Doctor stared at the broken remnants of the ornament, breathing hard, looking just startled as the rest of them.

". . . oh," he said softly, sinking into the chair which Tosh had leapt out of in alarm. "Oh."

"Doctor, what just happened?" questioned Donna, approaching him cautiously.

"I don't just have the body of a fifteen-year-old," said the Doctor dazedly. "I have the brain chemistry of one. Oh, this is Not Good."

 


	8. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Donna holds her ground, Owen contemplates adolescent psychology, and the Doctor breaks things. Well, more things.

"Explain, Spaceman," ordered Donna, placing her hands firmly on her hips. The last time she had seen the Doctor react with violence to anything had been when his daughter was killed, though he had looked about ready to hit someone a couple times in the Library. But those had been life-and-death situations, and whatever Captain Jack had done – she suspected that he had given in to the temptation to get information from the Doctor in his unusually open state – it wasn't  _that_  serious.

"I have no impulse control," the Doctor sighed, scrubbing a hand over his face. "I have faulty judgment, no sense of danger, a biological urge to take risks; I'm reeking of hormones, and  _you_ –" He jerked his head up to glare at Jack again. "You're excreting pheromones everywhere; it's extremely distracting."

Jack gave a brittle laugh.

"Hate to break it to you, Doc, but I think taking you up on that would make me a criminal in this country."

The Doctor's scowl deepened.

"One, you're already a criminal."

Jack winced, but didn't deny it.

"B, I'm not offering. The pheromones still don't work on me; they're just . . . louder. Also, that's not the worst of it. My brain isn't fully developed; it can't handle high levels of abstract thinking. I think . . ." His frown shifted from anger to concentration. ". . . yeah, I can barely handle four-dimensional calculus, let alone the sort of calculations needed to pilot the TARDIS."

"Hang on," protested Donna. "I've just got a human brain, and you taught me to fly the TARDIS."

"I taught you to push buttons and make things happen," retorted the Doctor dismissively. "They teach that to chimpanzees, too."

_Crack!_

The Doctor yelped in pain as Donna's hand connected with his face.

"Sorry, sorry!" he apologized hastily, rubbing his cheek. "I deserved that."

"You bet your skinny little alien rear you did," huffed Donna, but without much resentment. Her anger was fading quickly in the face of his huddled, defensive form.

"Like I said," he sighed with a grimace. "Impulse control."

"Okay, so we need to get you back to normal as soon as possible," said Gwen. "That shouldn't be too hard, right? I mean, we already have that age-advancer . . ."

"The Eluthian one?" asked the Doctor, and then continued without waiting for a response. "No, it won't work. Its power cells went critical a while ago; it's completely burnt out."

"I don't think we have any others," said Ianto. "You can always look through the archives, but you've seen most of it already."

"No, there's nothing there," said the Doctor definitively, and Donna wondered again just how long he had been here and why.

Jack cleared his throat, looking slightly uneasy – but then, Donna'd be skittish, too, if she had just had a glass dolphin chucked at her head.

"I hate to even suggest it," began Jack, and his face bore out his words, "but this isn't first time someone's messed with your age. If you still have –"

"I don't," said the Doctor sharply, his hands clenched into fists, tight enough to turn his knuckles white. "It's gone. I destroyed it, along with everything else." There was a dark undercurrent in his voice which Donna didn't like at all. "It wouldn't have worked, anyway," he added, his eyes skittering away. "Isomorphic controls, remember?"

"Right," said Jack, swallowing hard. "Sorry. I shouldn't have brought it up."

There was a beat of uncomfortable silence, which Donna took it upon herself to break.

"What are we going to do, then?" she asked. "We can't very well just wait around here until your brain matures."

"I can build an age-advancer from scratch," declared the Doctor, leaping to his feet. "Might take a while, but it shouldn't be too hard, what with everything Torchwood has which it shouldn't. Ianto, come give me hand, will you?"

"Oi, you're not leaving me behind!" protested Donna as the Doctor began to stride off purposefully, scooping up the mind probe as he did.

"Well, come on, then!" he tossed back in response.

She followed, and Ianto joined her after a moment of hesitation. She didn't know where they were going, but she knew that she wasn't letting the Doctor out of her sight.

~~~

There were a few moments of silence after the Doctor and his chosen entourage descended into the archives.

"Is it just me," said Tosh at last, "or is he kind of . . ."

"A prick?" Owen suggested, flopping back into his chair. He would have liked to think that the worst of it was over, but he knew better than to be foolishly optimistic. Even ignoring the Doctor's continued shortness and all the complications thereof, there was a certain edge to him which was from more than just de-aging. He had that look again, the one that he had had when he first turned up at Torchwood months ago – thin and stretched, like butter over too much bread.

"Oh, lay off, Owen," said Gwen with a scowl. "He  _did_  just suddenly become a fifteen-year-old."

"So?" questioned Owen. " _I_  wasn't that much of a tosser when I was fifteen."

He suddenly found himself the object of three extremely skeptical looks.

"Okay, so that's not the best example," he conceded with a roll of his eyes. "But I'm a wanker anyway. The Doctor can be a scary bastard, but he's not nasty like that."

"You should have met the last him," said Jack with a hollow chuckle.

"He's not just a fifteen-year-old, Owen," sighed Gwen exasperatedly. "He's a fifteen-year-old who's gone through everything the Doctor has."

"What's that got to do with –" Owen stopped.

_Shit._

He had been a right bastard when he was fifteen – because he was hurt, hurt and lonely and furious at the Universe and at himself. No one had given a shit about him and he hadn't given a shit about anything. All he had wanted was to make everyone else feel like he did, and if the Doctor felt like that now, with everything that had happened to him and everything he was capable of –

"Shit."

"He's still the Doctor," Jack reminded them. "He's the same person. He won't do anything dangerous."

"He did throw a dolphin at your head," Tosh pointed out.

". . . it wasn't a real one?" Jack defended weakly, and then continued more seriously. "That was before he realized what was going on. He'll be more careful."

"And we'll keep an eye on him, too, right?" Gwen prompted.

"Of course. Meanwhile, business as usual."

Right. Business as usual. They just had a traumatized, superhumanly powerful teenager in their basement. More importantly, they had the Doctor in an even more impulsive and volatile state than he usually was. Owen contemplated this for a moment, then, very nonchalantly, glanced around to check where Jack was. His back was turned, so Owen turned back to his desk and rooted out the small, white bottle which he had only got around to replacing a couple weeks ago.

He dropped his aspirin in the bin.

~~~

Ianto hovered between the shelves of the archives, pulling down the objects which the Doctor had requested and trying not to listen to the conversation which was occurring a couple aisles away.

He was failing. But, in his defense, Donna's voice was very piercing.

"Doctor, you're shaking."

"Am I?" The Doctor's voice was perfectly, falsely innocent. Donna's, when she answered, was sharp and unyielding.

"Yeah. You are. You have been, on and off for a few days now."

"Must be low blood sugar."

"You ate a whole pack of Jammy Dodgers this morning."

"Stress, then. That mind probe's a nasty bit of technology. Speaking of which – Ianto!"

"Yes, s-Doctor," said Ianto, popping out from behind the shelves and carefully not looking guilty.

"This probe, you've used it on people before."

It wasn't a question, but Ianto nodded anyway.

"And it was safe?"

Ianto resisted the urge to shift uncomfortably under the Doctor's dark gaze. Unlike Owen, he found the Doctor far more disconcerting now that he had regained his memories. There was something horribly  _wrong_  about eyes that old in so young a face; but it went deeper than that. The Doctor had his knowledge back, his pain, his power, but not his shields. For some reason – the hormones coursing through his veins, or the physically and mentally exhausting mind probe, or something else entirely – his human mask was thinner than ever.

"The first time was a little rough, but it went smoothly after that."

"Do I want to know?" asked the Doctor, glancing over the probe. Ianto wondered what he could perceive with his superhuman senses – could he see the traces of stains which never really faded? Could he smell the remnants of alien brain matter which surely remained in its nicks and crevices? Lord of Time that he was, could he hear the echoes of screams which had reverberated through the Hub?

"No."

The Doctor twitched, his jaw clenching. In a flurry of movement he slammed the lid onto the mind probe's box and shoved it onto the shelf.

"Right," he said, his breathing too loud in the dusty silence of the archives. He spun on his heel, and when Ianto met his eyes he could have sworn that he saw something like sparks behind them, bright and hot and not quite in control. "Don't use it again."

"I'll pass it on to Jack," Ianto agreed, before retreating back into the shelves. He felt a bit guilty about leaving Donna to deal with the Doctor on her own, but then, she seemed quite capable of handling him.

"Stop changing the subject, Space Boy. We're talking about  _you_."

"What's there to talk about?" The Doctor's innocent act was cracking, hints of defensiveness showing through.

"Oh, how about the fact that you stopped eating a while ago? Or maybe how you stopped sleeping before that?"

Silence, save for some muffled movement, and Ianto could almost picture the Doctor putting on an affronted, aloof look as he pointedly turned away.

"Don't you turn your back on me! I'm talking to you!"

"I don't need sleep," the Doctor snapped, with an edge which generally only made its appearance when someone crossed some invisible line of his. Ianto wondered if Donna had actually dared to make physical contact with the prickly, not-quite-sane Time Lord. She was a braver person than he if she had.

"Yes, you do – some, at least, and you haven't been getting any at all. I'm amazed you haven't keeled over yet."

More silence, and when Donna spoke again her tone was softer, gentle. Ianto really, really wasn't supposed to be hearing this, but he couldn't seem to drag his attention away.

"Doctor, if this is about nightmares . . . there are medicines, for that sort of thing. I know they're not good for you to take all the time, but just for a night or two . . . you've been looking like death warmed over."

A pause, and then,

"They don't work." The Doctor's voice was suspiciously tight, and Ianto was actually glad that he couldn't see him, guiltily relieved that he didn't have to see the ancient pain creasing those impossibly young features, didn't have to see a bony, shaking hand run over a pale, haunted face. "They haven't worked in a long time."

"Okay, no drugs then. But you've been pushing yourself too hard. It doesn't take a doctor to see that it's not healthy. You just need to slow down –"

" _No!_ "

The harsh exclamation was accompanied by a crack and quickly followed by a yelp of pain, and Ianto froze for a moment, shock and panic flashing through him – but, no. The yelp had been the Doctor's, not Donna's, which meant that the crack –

"Oh, bloody hell. Ianto, get over here, will you? The idiot's gone and broken his hand."

Ianto emerged from the shelves again, pausing for a moment to take in the scene in front of him. The Doctor had indeed broken his hand, judging by the way he was cradling it against his chest – he had also broken the table, which was in two pieces, propping itself up. The table which, to the best of Ianto's knowledge, was made of solid walnut.

"Thought you had magical alien bones," Donna commented, her hands on her hips, firmly not sympathetic.

"I do have stronger bones than a human, yes," the Doctor said, through teeth which were gritted in pain. "I'm also just generally  _stronger_  – case in point." He nodded to the table, looking slightly sheepish.

"Oh, don't pretend you did that with your secret superman muscles," said Donna, rolling her eyes. "I know how you operate. It's like that thing they do in little kids' karate classes, isn't it? You just calculated exactly where to hit it to make it break like that."

"Well, yes," conceded the Doctor, somewhat sulkily, "but it amounts to the same thing and by  _Rassilon_  this hurts!"

"Right, to Owen," said Ianto briskly, shaking himself out of his shocked paralysis. "Will you be able to make it up the ladder one-handed?"

"Yes, yes, I can manage."

"Don't think we're done talking about this," warned Donna, and the Doctor rolled his eyes.

"Of course we're not."

"Believe it or not, breaking your own hand has not convinced me of your mental stability!"

"It wasn't exactly on purpose!" the Doctor snapped.

"Well it wasn't exactly by accident, was it?" retorted Donna.

No, Ianto thought as the Doctor began to climb the ladder, grumbling and wincing. Not exactly by accident. He couldn't help but think that someone who could calculate, in the split second between a flare of temper and a violent reaction, exactly where to hit a table to split it in two should also be able to calculate exactly  _how_  to do it as to cause himself the least pain as possible.

Unless, of course, the table hadn't been all he had been aiming to break.

 


	9. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Owen is reluctantly impressed, the Doctor holds on by a thread, and Jack lets go.

Doctors, Owen was discovering, really did make horrible patients.

"Stop squirming," he ordered. "I can't get a clear picture."

"I can already tell you what's wrong," the Doctor complained, though he did make an effort to sit still on the autopsy table. He at least stopped swinging his feet.

"Yeah, I'd like to see for myself, if you don't mind – and if do mind, I'd still like to," Owen added, when the Doctor opened his mouth. "You're lucky Jack's not here to fuss over you. You've really done a number on yourself."

Gwen had dragged Jack out to pick up dinner, insisting that he could do with the fresh air, so Owen and Tosh had been the only ones left in the Hub when the three basement-dwellers reemerged, the Doctor nursing his injured hand.

"You should have – ow!– seen the other guy."

"'The other guy' was a table," Owen returned dryly.

"To be fair, the table is broken," Ianto put in.

"Which table?" asked Owen, faltering. Not that he hadn't put a few dents in walls himself, on a bad day, but he had never actually managed to break furniture. Then again, he'd never broken any bones, either.

"That wooden monstrosity in the back."

Owen stared at the Doctor incredulously.

"Seriously?"

He shrugged.

"Right," said Owen, overcoming his shock and reminding himself once again to never, ever get on the Doctor's wrong side. "Looks like it gave as good as it got," he said, examining the results of the scan. "Your fifth metacarpal is fractured in two places. I'm going to have to make sure it's set properly and then put a splint on it. I can find some cross-species anesthetic . . ."

"Don't bother," said the Doctor with a grimace. "Most of them wouldn't work and some of them would kill me. Which I suppose would mean I wasn't in pain, so it would be effective, in a way . . ."

"Not funny," snapped Donna, glaring at the Doctor, and then at Owen for his snort of dark amusement.

"Sorry."

A few minutes and a lot of wincing later, the Doctor was wrinkling his nose at his shiny new splint.

"Do me a favor," sighed Owen. "Next time, try getting drunk instead. It will last longer, be less work for me, and you're more likely to get a good shag out it."

"Oh, ew!" exclaimed Donna, making a face. "I did  _not_  need that image."

"Yeah, thanks for that; that's real flattering," said the Doctor sourly. "Owen, Time Lord, remember?"

"So, what, you don't have sex?" That would explain a lot, actually . . . .

"So I can't get drunk."

"Shit. No wonder you punch tables."

"Well, I don't make a habit of it," said the Doctor with a roll of his eyes. "You make it sound as if I go about picking a fight with every low-lying piece of furniture."

"No, but you dismantle things quite a lot," Owen replied, glancing pointedly at the brand new microscope which had replaced the one the Doctor had – ahem –  _repurposed_  on his last visit.

"Only when it's necessary!"

"Yeah . . . and when you're bored," corrected Donna. "That poor toaster," she added, shaking her head pityingly.

Ianto and Owen got a good laugh out of that, and a better one out of the Doctor's petulant glare, his young features ruining the 'Oncoming Storm' effect. Their mirth was cut off, however, by a loud and admirably profane exclamation from near Owen's desk.

"I suppose Toshiko told Jack what happened," deduced Ianto.

 

~~~

Jack was on the balcony an instant after Toshiko's revelation, gripping the safety bar with white knuckles. He gave the Doctor a quick once-over, noting his hunched, defensive posture before turning his scrutiny to Owen and Ianto. Jack had been in enough fist-fights to know what 'broken hand' really meant, and no matter what state the Doctor was in, Jack couldn't picture him ever, ever hitting a woman –

"It was a table, not a person," said the Doctor, sounding irritated, ashamed, and hurt all at once. "I'm not that far off my head."

"Okay, good," said Jack, relaxing slightly, before tensing again. "No, wait, what the  _fuck_?"

"I was upset," said the Doctor, the hand which wasn't splinted gripping the autopsy table he was perched on. "I punched something. It's a fairly common expression of frustration among humanoids, Time Lords included."

"Yeah," Jack spat out, anger flaring at the intentionally vague answer. "I'm quite familiar with that particular Time Lord reaction, thanks."

The Doctor flinched as though struck, his breath catching and his eyes squeezing shut. Jack deflated immediately, guilt flooding through him. He had already prodded at the particular wound enough, today.

"Sorry, Doc, that was . . . that wasn't fair."

"Nothing's ever fair," muttered the Doctor, picking at a loose thread on his pants.

"Don't I know it?" said Jack with a half-hearted smile, descending the stairs to stand in front of the Doctor. "Look, Doc –" He reached out and stilled the Time Lord's fidgeting hand with his own. The Doctor tensed a little at the contact, but didn't pull away. "This isn't like you. Tell me what's going on."

"It's just the testosterone," said the Doctor, still avoiding his eyes. "Well, it's not technically testosterone, but that's the closest human analogue. It's making me more aggressive than usual; that's all."

"You  _sure_  that's all?" asked Jack, not really expecting an honest answer, but hoping maybe, maybe . . .

"Yep!" said the Doctor, too brightly, the word sounding like a shard of glass. His hand clenched beneath Jack's, his fingers digging into his leg in a way that had to be painful. Jack's fears grew stronger. "I just need to get back to my old self – quite literally – so if you don't mind –"

He made to stand, but Jack forced him back with a hand on his shoulder. He did meet Jack's eyes, then, with a sharp glare. Jack held his ground, recognizing this anger as hot but harmless. It was just a teenager's temper, flashing and noisy and brief.

"I'm not actually a child, Jack," the Doctor snapped.

"Maybe not, but you're not safe on your own, either."

The Doctor glanced away, but didn't deny it.

"We have dinner up there," said Jack, nodding towards the rest of the Hub. "I think we could all use it. Then we talk."

"Fine," the Doctor grumbled. "If I may?" he asked sarcastically, and hopped down from the table without waiting for a response, radiating wounded pride. Jack let him go.

"Make sure he actually eats something," he said to Owen as he passed, and then caught Donna's arm. "Can I talk to you for a sec?"

"Sure," said Donna, hanging back. "So?" she questioned, once they were alone in the autopsy room.

"This isn't just about testosterone," said Jack, keeping his voice low, mindful of the Doctor's sharp hearing.

Donna snorted.

"No, really?"

"I know something about Time Lord strength –"

"How –?"

"—not important. The point is, whatever he did to that table –"

"Split it right in two," said Donna.

"Right," said Jack, not very surprised. "But even with that, he should have been able to do it without breaking his hand."

He had seen the Master put his fist through a sheet of solid steel and come away with nothing worse than bruised knuckles – as a demonstration of Time Lord strength in comparison to Jack's oh-so-breakable bones. When it came to frustration, the Master would never use an inanimate object as a punching bag when he had such a lovely victim all strung up and ready to scream.

"You're saying he hurt himself on purpose?" asked Donna, dragging Jack back to the present.

"I'm saying he didn't put a lot of effort into  _not_  hurting himself." It was possible – far, far too possible – that the Doctor had turned on himself physically as well as mentally, but up to this point all his indications in that direction had been in negatives: not eating, not sleeping, not fighting. There had never been any sign that he would actively do himself bodily harm – well, except for those over-bright eyes tracking the aspirin on that second night.

"Alright," said Donna, admirably steady, and Jack could see her turning this new information over in her mind. "Hang on; he said that he couldn't fix his hand with the TARDIS because it only worked on adults. He was lying, wasn't he?"

"I don't know," said Jack quickly. "He might not have been. There's no reason the TARDIS should be calibrated for an adolescent Time Lord."

"I suppose not," said Donna, deflating slightly. "Except he did have kids, once . . ."

"What?"

"Never mind," said Donna with a shake of her head. "We might be over-thinking this. Do  _you_ remember being a teenager?"

"That was literally over a century ago, so no, not really."

Donna raised her eyebrows, looking skeptical.

"Pull the other one, it's got bells on."

"No, really," said Jack, a little thrown. "I'm immortal. The Doc didn't tell you?"

"He might've done, but I stop listening after about three minutes of rambling . . . you're not joking?" she questioned, looking him up and down as if searching for some hidden 'gotcha' sign.

"Genuine vintage," said Jack with a grin, relishing the impressed look on her face. It wasn't often he got to make this revelation when he hadn't just died.

"What happens if you get shot in the head or something?"

"Happens more often than you'd think," he told her with a forced chuckle. "What were you saying about teenagers?"

"Teenagers? Oh, yeah. Teenagers aren't the most thoughtful bunch, you might have noticed. They don't really plan things, they just  _do_  – which is pretty much how the Doctor is normally."

"So breaking his hand wasn't really a decision," said Jack. It was certainly a comforting thought, and seemed more convincing the more he thought about it. "It was just an impulse."

"That's it. And I don't think he'll do it again, judging by the way he was moaning about it," said Donna. "I mean, obviously he's still a royal mess, and we should talk to him before he runs off to tinker with his gadgets again, but I don't think we need to start hiding the razor blades."

Jack cringed a little at the allusion, but nodded in agreement. Donna's assessment made sense. What the Doctor had done in a fit of pique, when he was exhausted and starving and already angry, not to mention fifteen, didn't necessarily reflect too heavily on his state of mind in general.

"You're right. But after dinner we'll talk to him."

"After dinner," Donna agreed. "Come on, then; I'm starving!"

". . . but now it's completely different," the Doctor was saying when they emerged. He was gesturing with his injured right hand, using his left to mix up some repulsively colored concoction of sauces while Tosh looked on in nauseated fascination. "Taste buds are strange," he concluded, deftly using the cheap takeaway chopsticks to dip a piece of meat in the sauce and pop it in his mouth.

He was ambidextrous. Jack decided that he shouldn't find that surprising.

"Yours are, at least," commented Owen, making a face at the Doctor's mixture. "That's fucking disgusting."

"Language," chided the Doctor through a mouthful of chicken, but his eyes were darting between Jack and Donna. He knew what they had been talking about, Jack was certain – had probably even heard some or most of it. Still, he didn't say anything as they sat down and helped themselves to the takeaway.

"Well, I'm off," said Owen after a few more minutes of carefully light conversation. "I've been down here for twenty-four hours straight and no offense, Doctor, Donna, some offense, Jack, but I've had just about enough of sewers and insanity for a while. Try to keep the Universe off drugs for the next twelve hours or so, will you?"

Gwen stood as he did.

"I should be getting home, too," she said. "I promised Rhys I'd be home before he went to sleep."

"Yeah, go ahead," agreed Jack, then glanced at Toshiko and Ianto. "You two, also. And that means you, Ianto," he added as the younger man opened his mouth. "I happen to know that you can use the sleep, since you didn't get much last night."

His remark was met with muffled laughter, a rather adorable pink flush in Ianto's cheeks, and a roll of the Doctor's eyes. A few moments later, the Hub was empty, save for him, Donna, and the Doctor.

"So," said Jack.

"'So' what?" questioned the Doctor, meeting Jack's eyes, and it was almost a challenge.

"So you're shaking again," said Donna, her hands on her hips as she stood beside Jack.

"I'm fine," said the Doctor, turning to meet her gaze, now. In contrast with his trembling hands, his stare was too steady, like an amateur liar trying to keep eye contact – no, not quite like that, because the Doctor was anything but an amateur. It was more like a cornered, angry animal in a struggle for dominance, not daring to show weakness by blinking.

"No, you're not," said Donna, firmly, but with tenderness behind it. She reached forward to take his hand, but he leapt from the sofa and slipped to the side, avoiding her touch.

"Yes, I am," he said, more sharply. "I'm alright. I'm always –"

"You stop that right now!" Donna ordered. "We all know it's a lie."

"It's just us, Doc," said Jack, standing as well but hanging back. The Doctor was tense as a bowstring, looking ready to bolt if they got any closer. "You don't have to be alright."

"Oh, I do," said the Doctor with a mirthless laugh. "I really, really do. I will not be a liability, Jack!" he snarled, his twisted smile dropping away and revealing the burning rage behind it.

"You were never –"

"People died!" The rage was just another mask, but it was thicker than the smile, and the Doctor would cling to it for as long as he could. "People died,  _innocent_  people, because you were protecting  _me_."

His tone communicated exactly how much he thought he was worth compared to them.

"If that's not the very definition of a liability then I have been sorely misinformed," continued the Doctor, acid dripping from every word.

"This isn't a crisis, you prawn," Donna pointed out. "We're just some mates, eating dinner. Nobody's going to die just because you let your guard down for a bit."

"No?" questioned the Doctor, attention snapping back to her. "You sure about that, Donna Noble?"

"Yeah," she said, crossing her arms and staring him down defiantly. "I am. And I'm also sure that you're not at all alright, not even Time Lord alright, and you haven't been for a long time."

The Doctor bristled, holding his ground, but this scenario was all too familiar. He would crack, just like before, Jack was sure of it. Well – almost sure. But where before the Doctor had been drowning in guilt and loss and self-loathing, now the not-technically-testosterone which soaked his body was turning his anger outward, and Jack couldn't be entirely certain that he would react predictably.

The Doctor's hands clenched into to fists at his side, his injured one straining against the splint in a way that had to painful.

"Yes, I am," he stated, in an attempt at a calm voice. It was closer to growl. "I am absolutely,  _perfectly_  alright, and always have been, and you know how you can tell? Because if I weren't alright, those  _cowards_  on that Crusader vehicle would have more than guilt to keep them up at night."

Jack's heart stuttered in his chest, and Donna dropped her confrontational pose, looking stricken. The Doctor was shaking worse than ever, but he wasn't finished.

"The Vashta Nerada would have  _burned_ , even if it meant burning the whole Library down with them – and  _General Cobb_ ," the Doctor spat, his voice rising with every syllable, "would have a  _bullet in his head!_ "

There was a moment of shocked silence as the echoes died away, and the Doctor spoke again before either of them could, his voice quiet and shaky.

"So you see, I'm perfectly alright. Completely, absolutely –" His voice cracked, and he fled past them and into the TARDIS.

"I'll go after him," said Donna, placing a restraining hand on Jack's arm as he moved to follow. "Don't want to crowd him, and you look knackered, anyway."

"Yeah," said Jack, taking a step back. He hadn't realized how tired he was until Donna put it into words. "Yeah, that's probably best . . ."

Donna offered him a sympathetic smile, and was gone.

Jack sank on the sofa, burying his face in his hands as exhaustion rolled over him in waves.

Alone in the Hub, he let tears fall.


	10. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Donna makes a good point, Ianto makes a new acquaintance (of sorts), and apologies are made all around.

It took Donna longer than she'd have liked to find the Doctor. She ended up in front of the kitchen three times before she finally put her foot down.

"Listen up, you old rust-bucket! I know you care about the stubborn alien just as much as I do, and you're not doing him any favors by hiding him from me."

The TARDIS gave a groaning hum, sounding both irritated and mournful, and Donna sighed.

"Alright, you're not a rust-bucket," she said, feeling a little silly but reaching out to stroke the wall consolingly, "but I really need to find the Doctor. He shouldn't be alone right now."

Feeling an answering tug at the back of her mind, she turned. There was a door behind her which almost certainly hadn't been there before, wooden and battered. Stopping only to send a word of thanks to the living timeship, she pulled it open.

The room was quite dark, and she paused a moment to allow her eyes to adjust while the door swung shut behind her. As she did so, she registered a faint sound which was disturbing the still, cool air.

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

She moved forward, picking her way through piles of what looked like everything but the kitchen sink. There were various pieces of clothing and jewelry, an old-fashioned journal, what looked like a slightly singed robot dog, some sort of crown . . . .

The thumping was getting louder, and Donna headed towards it. Soon she was within view of the back corner, and the skinny figure who was curled in it, rhythmically slamming his head back against the wall.

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

"Hey now, Time Boy," said Donna, nudging a pair of pocket watches out of the way and sinking down beside him. "Giving yourself brain trauma isn't going to help anything."

_Thump._

"Might," the Doctor mumbled contrarily, but ceased his mild self-harm and buried his face in his knees instead.

Seeing that it was up to her to initiate conversation, Donna glanced around the darkened room.

"Haven't seen this place before," she said, keeping her voice casual. "Bit of a mess, isn't it?"

He remained stubbornly silent.

"Doctor. What is all this?" she questioned, poking him none-too-gently in the ribs.

"Just things," he muttered into his knees, still refusing to look at her.

"What kind of things?"

"Things I can't bear to look at anymore."

_And also can't bear to let go,_  Donna added in her mind, recognizing the purple jacket which sat atop a nearby stack of outdated schoolbooks. Aloud, she asked,

"What are you doing here, then?"

The Doctor shifted slightly, and one large, brown eye peered out at her reproachfully.

"Oh." She shook her head, torn between exasperation and his melodrama and heartbreak at the very real hurt behind it. "Oh, Doctor," she sighed, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and hugging him closer to her, ignoring his half-hearted resistance. He was practically vibrating with coiled tension, but began to slowly relax as she stroked her hand over his hair.

Trust the Doctor to have a shrine to all his losses. Trust him to hide himself in it when he was already hurting.

"Jack thinks that you're hurting yourself on purpose." She kept her voice carefully even and gentle, trying not to reveal either her own horror at the thought or the pain and worry which had shown through the Captain's professional mask. The Doctor had enough guilt on his shoulders already, and the last thing she wanted was for him to put on a show for them, burying his pain even deeper than he already had.

The Doctor tensed again, curling in on himself even further, but otherwise didn't respond.

"I told him that it probably wasn't quite like that," Donna continued. "Was I lying to him, Doctor?"

"No," the Doctor muttered, his hand moving to the back of his neck. "I'd never do that."

"You're doing it right now," she pointed out, and he immediately loosened his grip on his neck, which his fingers had been digging into with bruising force.

"Doesn't really hurt," the Doctor defended unconvincingly, swallowing audibly.

"Now you're lying."

He pulled away from her, sliding sideways against the wall in a swift, sharp movement and then folding in on himself again.

"Doctor." She turned to face him, her heart breaking at the picture he made. He looked tiny and vulnerable as he sat huddled among the dusty monuments of his grief, his pale, thin arms scant protection against the shadows which threatened to consume him. "You don't deserve pain."

He finally raised his head, his eyes almost black in the gloom.

"You can't possibly know that."

"I can," said Donna firmly, holding his gaze, "because I know  _you._ "

His eyes skittered away from hers and he moved as if to retreat into his defensive ball again, but Donna reached out and grabbed his wrist in one hand, putting the other on his cheek and forcing him to face her. He was trembling beneath her fingers, and his face was soaked with silent tears, invisible in the darkness.

"I know you," she repeated, with as much authority as she could muster. "Captain Jack knows you, too, and so does everyone on that team of his, and they all care about you, because  _that's_  what you deserve. Friends."

"Then why?" asked the Doctor. Maybe it was supposed to be a challenge, but he sounded like the abandoned child he appeared to be, sorrowful and guilt-ridden but mostly just scared, horribly scared of being left alone to face the cold and the dark and the silence of an empty Universe. "Why does it always come to this?" he questioned, gesturing with his injured hand at the heaps of artifacts which surrounded them – remnants, she suspected, of every lost chance at happiness.

"It doesn't. It  _hasn't_. You have a home out there, Doctor."

He shook his head in helpless denial.

"It won't last," he whispered, voice raw with emotion. "They're human. They'll age; they'll die –"

"Jack won't," said Donna, and never had she been more grateful for fantastical, ridiculous insanity which infused everything the Doctor touched. "He's immortal, he said. And Doctor –" She tightened her grip on his wrist, meeting eyes which were deep and dark and doubting in a pale, young face. "He will  _always_  be there when you need him. All you have to do is ask."

She knew that with absolute certainty, knew it from all the looks and touches and subtext which she had observed with the keen eyes which had witnessed a thousand office romances, from weekend flings to forbidden loves. Jack was proud and protective of his team, and he loved Ianto, but he  _adored_  the Doctor. And a thousand years from now, when Ianto and Donna herself were nothing but dust, he would still adore the Doctor.

The Doctor crumpled at last, allowing her to gather him in her arms as he descended into wracking sobs.

~~~

Ianto had expected that when he returned to the Hub, the Doctor would not be in the main area any longer, having long since retreated to Jack's room, the archives, or the TARDIS. As it turned out, he was right. He hadn't expected to find Jack hunched in the Doctor's customary place on the sofa, wiping his eyes.

"Jack?"

The captain jumped, making a compulsive movement towards his gun before registering who he was.

"Fuck, Ianto," he cursed, relaxing again and running his hand over his face in a gesture which didn't quite erase the traces of tears from his cheeks. "Don't sneak up on me like that."

"Sorry."

"I thought I told you get some sleep," sighed Jack.

"I did." In a way, technically. He had tried, at least.

"Two hours is not sleep," said Jack, but his tone was more amused than scolding, and the gratitude which shone in his eyes was more than enough to convince Ianto that he had made the right decision in coming back. "I was just about to go looking for the Doctor," Jack said, standing. "He's in the TARDIS somewhere, with Donna. Come with me?"

Jack was barely even trying to sound casual, now, and Ianto could easily read the subtext beneath the invitation. It was both a request for support and an expression of trust, an offer to let Ianto into the most treasured and intimate part of Jack's life.

Ianto hesitated.

"Are you sure that's wise?"

"Oh, yeah," said Jack with an unconcerned wave of his hand. "The TARDIS won't let us find him if we shouldn't."

Ianto didn't know what that meant, and he was fairly certain that it wouldn't have addressed his actual concern even if he did, but he followed after only a moment's indecision. Jack needed his support, and besides that, he really did want to check on the Doctor. Strange and frightening and alien as he was, he was also caring and charismatic and clever, and Ianto honestly liked him, most of the time.

In any event, Jack loved him, and that was enough for Ianto to look to his wellbeing.

"Hey, old girl," said Jack as they stepped inside, running his hand along the edge of the console. The room's ambient hum shifted slightly, as if in response.

"The ship," said Ianto, who had been meaning to ask about it since his two rather disconcerting journeys inside it that morning, "is it –?"

"Alive? Sentient? Gorgeous? Yes, yes, and absolutely."

The ship hummed again, and Ianto could have sworn that it was a chuckle. Jack was flirting with a time machine. Of course he was.

"Oh," was all he said aloud, as he glanced around the room with new eyes. The Doctor had always talked about the TARDIS as though it – she – were an old friend or (and now his earlier conversation with Donna returned to him) an old lover, but the Doctor was slightly mad and very lonely, so Ianto had never thought much of it. "So when it seems like the doors have shifted –"

"That's her, rearranging things for you," said Jack, just as the room gave an impatient rumble. "And that means, 'stop yapping and find the Doctor already.' We're going, beautiful, we're going."

Jack set off confidently out of the console room, and Ianto hurried to keep up as they made their way past several doors to a worn, wooden one. It sat innocently across from the kitchen, looking for all the world as though it had always been there, when Ianto knew for a fact that only that morning the wall had been blank.

"This is the one," said Jack, and Ianto didn't ask how he knew.

"I could wait out here," he offered. "If you want me to," he elaborated, when Jack shot him a puzzled look. "I wouldn't want to intrude . . ."

"You're not intruding," said Jack. His lips twisted into a wry smile. "The Doctor could use all the friends he can get."

"Yes, I suppose he could," Ianto agreed, and it was settled. Jack pushed open the door.

The room was cool, dark, and cluttered. There was no immediate sign of the Doctor, but then, it was difficult to see much through the gloom and amongst the heaps of what appeared to be random objects. The frown on Jack's face said that he couldn't make much more sense of the room than Ianto could.

He reached out and picked up some futuristic device, his frown deepening.

"What is it?" asked Ianto. He knew what it looked like, but he couldn't see the Doctor ever allowing a gun aboard his ship.

"Sonic blaster," said Jack, his voice coming from someplace very far away. "51st century, from the weapons factories of Villengard." He flipped it over to examine some reading on the side, and his frown softened into an oddly wistful smile. "Battery's dead."

He shook himself back to the present, dropping the blaster back onto the heap of crimson fabric where he had found it.

"Come on. Let's find the Doctor."

"Back here."

They both jumped a little as Donna's voice floated over to them from surprisingly nearby.

"Keep quiet," she added, as they followed the sound. "He's asleep."

There was no question of whom she was referring to, and indeed, they moved forward to find the Doctor curled against Donna's side, clinging to her blouse with his uninjured hand and breathing deeply in peaceful slumber. He always looked young and vulnerable in sleep, and his unusually youthful appearance only reinforced the impression.

"He'll be alright?" Jack questioned, innumerable emotions warring in his eyes as he stared down at the sleeping Time Lord.

"Yeah," said Donna, smiling fondly as she brushed a hand over the Doctor's hair. "He'll be fine. Just needs a little TLC, that's all. And a good smack to stop him moping."

"Good," said Jack, smiling as well. He glanced around the room, and his smile fell away as his eyes lighted on a woman's jacket which was folded on top of a pile of old textbooks. "Is this place what I think it is?"

"Dunno," said Donna. "Do you think it's His Lordliness's Cupboard of Misery? 'Cause I'm pretty sure that's what it is."

Ianto gave a snort of amusement, and Jack's teeth flashed in a grin.

"Something like that," he agreed. He reached towards the jacket, but faltered and picked up one of the books instead. He flipped it open, and from where he stood at his shoulder Ianto could see a few handwritten words inside the cover.

_Property of Susan Foreman._

"Jack."

Jack and Ianto both jumped guiltily at the Doctor's voice. He was awake and an arm's length from Donna, despite the fact that he had been sound asleep and pressed against her approximately two seconds ago.

"Could you at least pretend that you respect my privacy?" he grumbled, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. He froze suddenly, his dark eyes focusing on the book in Jack's hands, apparently realizing what it was for the first time. "Put that down," he ordered, deadly calm.

Jack dropped it as if burned, and Ianto swallowed hard.

"Sorry, Doc," said Jack, with an uneasy smile.

The Doctor glared coldly, looking ready to say something scathing in reply, but Donna put a restraining hand on his shoulder.

"Calm down, Spaceman, he's said he's sorry. Anyway, you're scaring Ianto."

Ianto flushed a little at being referred to like a child, but the rebuke seemed to be effective. The Doctor deflated, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly.

"Sorry," he apologized. "I suppose I've been a bit tetchy lately."

Donna snorted.

"A bit?"

"Yes, alright, I've been a right git," the Doctor admitted reluctantly. "Shouldn't have thrown things at you, Jack."

"I shouldn't have pried," said Jack.

"No, you shouldn't have," agreed the Doctor, climbing to his feet and straightening his clothes. "But I can't exactly scold you for poking your nose in where it doesn't belong. Well, I suppose I could, but it would be a bit hypocritical, don't you think?"

"So we're okay?" asked Jack.

"We're okay," the Doctor confirmed, and smiled.

In the darkness, it was impossible to tell whether it reached his eyes.

 


	11. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Donna gives a suggestion (which Jack doesn't take), Jack spins a tale (which the Doctor doesn't like), and the Doctor tells a lie (which Donna doesn't buy).

It was incredible how light changed perception. In his Cupboard of Misery (Donna was definitely going to call it that from now on), where the darkness leeched the color and the definition from everything, the Doctor had looked like – well, like a ghost. His constantly freezing skin and general aura of desolation did nothing to soften that impression. When they stepped out into the corridor he was suddenly solid again, but still unearthly. As they traipsed through his living ship and into the multi-storied wardrobe room to retrieve his sonic (and for him to slip on a blazer despite the summer heat outside, claiming that he felt naked without sleeves), the ever-shifting golden-green-orange light cast strange shadows on his face and made him look alien and untouchable.

Then they stepped out into the cold light of Torchwood, and reality came crashing back.

He looked like hell. Too pale, too skinny, too sharp and hollow and stretched.

But then, didn't they all? She studied the others. Captain Jack looked exhausted, his eyes (which she knew for a fact were an insanely bright blue) flat grey, his strong jaw only adding to his general grimness. Ianto's young face was creased with worry and uncertainty that would probably have been sweet in more forgiving environs. She was sure that she looked no better, her pale skin washed out and her oft-commented on hair probably dull and lifeless. The Doctor's was, anyway, not showing any of the reddish tones which it did in the sunlight.

"Good god, this place is depressing."

"Hey!" protested Jack, looking insulted.

"Well it is," she reiterated, rolling her eyes. "It's a bleeping sewer, mate."

"She's got a point," said the Doctor thoughtfully, glancing around.

"It's supposed to be a top secret organization," said Jack exasperatedly. "We can't exactly rent office space."

"Torchwood One did," Ianto pointed out.

"Built their own skyscraper, actually," the Doctor added.

"Yeah, and look how that turned out."

"Well, yeah," said the Doctor, sticking his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels, then almost falling over as he forgot about the shift in his center of gravity. Recovering quickly and ignoring Donna's snort of amusement, he continued. "But I think that had less to do with the building and more to do with the fact that they were tearing holes in the fabric of the Universe."

"And that they thought they could hold him," Ianto put in, nodding to the Doctor.

"That too."

"We are not going to build a skyscraper," said Jack, gritting his teeth. Donna was strongly reminded of the frustration on the Doctor's face when faced with both her and Martha.

"Nah, 'course not," said Donna, deciding to take mercy on him – sort of. "That'd be ridiculous. But a bit of interior decorating couldn't hurt. Maybe get some lights which don't make everyone look like they're about to drop dead from vitamin D deficiency."

"No!" Jack snapped, looking cornered as his eyes jumped between his three assailants. "We are not redecorating! This is my agency, and I'll light it the way I want to, okay?"

"But,  _Daaaad_  –" the Doctor whined.

Jack spun towards him, finger raised and mouth open to tell him off, but stopped. There was a beat of silence as he and the Doctor stared at each other, and then they both burst out laughing. Donna and Ianto joined them a moment later, and the Hub echoed with their mirth. There was a slightly hysterical edge to it, but then, none of them had laughed properly in a long while.

"Alright, alright," said Donna a minute later, wiping her eyes. "No redecorating."

Ianto snorted, Jack grinned, and the Doctor – she swore to god – giggled.

They all stared at him, and his eyes went wide.

"Blimey, was that me? I  _really_  need to work on that age-advancer."

"Hate to break it to you, Doc," said Jack, following him as he set off towards the archives, "but I have definitely heard you make that sound before."

"What? You have not!"

"Have too."

"Have not."

Donna and Ianto exchanged long-suffering looks, and followed.

~~~

"They never did!"

"Cross my heart."

"No, come on, that's not even possible."

"Doctor?"

Beside Ianto, the Doctor sighed, not looking up from the haphazard piece of machinery he was constructing out of futuristic kitchen appliances and the wiring from a 50's television.

"Theoretically, it's possible that the security bots could mistake the organic materials in Jack's clothes for an unauthorized life form and incinerate them –"

"Told you."

"—but the chances of that happening under normal circumstances are infinitesimally small."

"I knew it!"

"On the other hand, judging solely from my own experience, the chances of that happening to Jack Harkness are significantly greater."

"Hell yeah, they are. So there I am, stark naked in the middle of this factory complex – and I only got in to begin with because the foreman liked me, great guy – and it turns out that it's the day of the royal inspection . . ."

"So, Ianto."

Ianto jumped, startled out of his light dozing (Jack had been right; two hours was not sleep). The Doctor was still focused on his machine, his voice light and casual.

"How've you been?"

Ianto wondered vaguely if he was still sleeping. Since when did they do small talk? He hadn't even thought the Doctor understood the concept.

". . . fine."

"Really?" asked the Doctor, glancing up and fixing him with his dark gaze.

"Really," Ianto assured him, thoroughly disconcerted. Not that he hadn't talked to the Doctor before . . . but no, he hadn't, now that he thought of it. Not really. The Doctor had talked  _at_  him, and there had been plenty of comfortable silences as they worked side-by-side in the archives, but they had never really had a conversation. Feeling that perhaps he ought to take advantage of this opportunity, he cleared his throat and elaborated further. "Everyone's fine. We've had a couple close calls, but everything turned out alright. That Cordolaine field you fixed probably saved Owen's life a few months back."

"Good," said the Doctor, turning back to the jumbled device. "That's . . . that's good."

"It is," Ianto agreed.

". . . and I'm standing there in nothing but his daughter's tiara, and the King is staring me down and he's got all these guards behind him with these nasty-looking spear things, so I say 'Your Highness, it's not what it looks like,' and he says 'What does it look like?'"

"You're kidding me!"

"He had  _no clue_! See, turns out . . ."

"Jack does love a fresh audience," the Doctor commented.

"I think he makes half of it up," said Ianto, while Donna smacked Jack on the arm in rebuke for a particularly crude gesture.

"Probably," the Doctor agreed. "But then, the truth is stranger than fiction."

". . . _the wrong planet!_  The whole time, I thought I was on Kepler 22B, but it was actually Capella V!"

"Capella V?" questioned the Doctor sharply, his head snapping up so quickly that Ianto winced in sympathy. "We got arrested on Capella V!  _That's_  what that was about?"

"Well –"

"You told me you stole the crown jewels!"

"Oh, come on, you didn't get that that was a euphemism? Why did you  _think_  Rose was giggling like that?"

"We nearly got executed!" It was actually rather impressive how high-pitched the Doctor's voice could go when he was agitated.

"But we didn't. And I did get us out of that dungeon."

"Yes, and then  _I_  had to start a revolution to escape the palace."

"You'd been wanting to do that since we first landed, anyway."

"That's not the point!"

"Look, if you hadn't –"

"Oi!" snapped Donna, cutting across their bickering quite effectively. "Don't make me separate you two. Flipping children, the both of you."

"Technically –" the Doctor began, but Donna cut him off with a glare.

Jack cleared his throat.

"How's the age-advancer coming, Doc?"

"Slowly. I haven't got the muscle memory for the settings on my sonic screwdriver. Still, all things considered, it's coming along. I've had to pull the temporal destabilizers from a fifty-third century . . ."

The Doctor descended into technobabble, and Ianto let his eyes slide shut. Hell, he was exhausted. He didn't want to leave Jack when he needed support, but maybe if he just put his head down for a few minutes . . . Jack probably wouldn't even notice, engrossed as he was with the Doctor.

Just . . . a few . . . minutes . . .

"Ianto."

Ianto jerked awake to find a firm hand on his shoulder. Jack was standing beside him, frowning concernedly.

"Sorry," Ianto said, trying in vain to rub the sleep from his eyes.

"No, I'm sorry," said Jack, his hand shifting from his shoulder to the back of his neck and massaging it gently. "You must be beat. Come on, bed. And I mean  _sleep_ ," he added, with a touch of amusement.

Too tired to protest, Ianto allowed Jack to lead him up one ladder and down another, into Jack's room. Jack helped him out of most of his clothes with a tender care that Ianto wasn't too tired to appreciate, and then pressed a kiss to his forehead as he sank into the narrow bed.

"Thank you."

Ianto drifted off to sleep.

~~~

The Doctor seemed to shrink a little as Jack left the room with Ianto in tow. He didn't look quite as miserable as he had earlier, but there was a definite air of quiet depression about him, now that he had stopped talking.

Now that everyone had stopped talking. As the empty hush grew more and more intrusive, Donna couldn't help but remember her earlier conversation with Captain Jack. Glancing at the Doctor, she weighed her options. She could distract him with more chatter, light words which barely skittered over the surface of his shell – or she could get right down the core of the problem, and see what she could do to fix it.

She had always favored the direct approach.

"Jack said that you people were telepathic."

She tried to keep her tone gentle, but he flinched anyway, fumbling his screwdriver.

"He said you can feel that they're gone, in your head."

The Doctor swallowed hard, and while his face was carefully neutral, his voice betrayed the tightness in his throat.

"He wasn't wrong."

"Does it hurt?"

The Doctor avoided her eyes, his grip white-knuckled on his sonic and his jaw tense.

"Nope," he said shortly.

"Doctor."

He twitched a little under her expectant stare, and soon gave in.

"Only when I think about it."

" _Doctor._ "

"No, really!" he insisted.

"And how often do you think about it?" Donna questioned skeptically.

"Time Lord, Donna," the Doctor reminded her – as if she could have forgotten – rubbing the back of neck uncomfortably. "My mind is a multidimensional, multilayered, nonlinear –"

"All the time, then?"

The Doctor deflated, hunching his shoulders defensively as he poked at his machine.

"Not during a crisis," he muttered. "Usually. If it's interesting enough."

_Oh, Doctor._  No wonder he never slowed down. She wasn't sure how to fix this – wasn't sure anyone could – but she was sure that she couldn't leave as he was, small and lonely and, knowing him, mentally prodding at his permanent, invisible wound. On an impulse, Donna wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

He gave a squeak and pulled away, staring at her with shock and alarm.

"Calm down," she said, rolling her eyes. "That was a friendly hug and a pity kiss, because you look so pathetic. In case you've forgotten, you're still fifteen, and I'm not interested, anyway."

"Oh. Okay." The Doctor bent over his device once more, the despondent look creeping over his features again.

"Oh, come on, you prawn," said Donna, pulling him close to her once more.

"Donna," he protested feebly, his voice vibrating against her shoulder, "I really do need to finish this age-advancer."

"Yeah, you do," she agreed, not letting go. "But I think you need a hug more."

For once, he didn't argue.

That, Donna thought, was more telling than words could ever be.

 


	12. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Toshiko gets displaced, the Doctor gets a headache, and Jack gets something off his chest.

When Toshiko walked into the Hub the next morning, she was greeted with the most terrifying sight imaginable. She stopped dead, her breath catching. No, no, this was not happening. Oh god, no. She had had nightmares about this . . .

"Morning, Toshiko," said the Doctor cheerfully, from where he was seated in front of her computer.

"Don't worry," put in Donna from where she was sitting in Owen's chair, apparently seeing the horrified look on Toshiko's face. "I've been keeping an eye on him."

Toshiko offered her an attempt at a grateful smile, not at all reassured.

"Doctor, I have a lot of important programs on there –"

"Yes, I saw them," answered the Doctor. "They're brilliant. Really, absolutely astounding."

"Thank you," said Toshiko reflexively. Any other time she would have killed for a compliment like that from a genius like him, but right now – "Listen, I spent a lot of time on those –"

"Oh, I'm not changing anything," said the Doctor with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I just need to set the parameters for the age-advancer. It's easier to enter them into the computer and upload them to the age-advancer than to set them directly."

"It's done, then?" questioned Owen as he stepped around Toshiko and ascended the stairs.

"Yep. Finished it about twenty minutes ago." The Doctor gestured vaguely over his shoulder, and Toshiko shook herself out of her paralysis to see what he was indicating. On the coffee table sat a small device about the size of her palm. It looked as haphazard as everything the Doctor made, all exposed wires and microchips.

"That's it?" asked Owen, sounding unimpressed – but then, he always did.

" _That_ ," the Doctor snapped, glaring, "is a highly complex piece of engineering. It's the equivalent of a supercomputer built out of sticks, rocks, and a broken mobile – by a fifteen-year-old, I must add."

Any other day, Toshiko was sure, Owen would have replied to that with a snarky comeback about egos and adolescence and that one time when the high-and-mighty Time Lord got distracted and ran into the wall, but there was still something sharp and sparking in the Doctor's eyes which even Owen seemed to take as a warning.

"Alright," he conceded, holding up his hands in surrender. "It's a fucking miracle. D'you mind?" he asked Donna rudely. She rolled her eyes, but vacated his chair and moved to the sofa.

"Where's Jack?" asked Toshiko, while she hovered anxiously behind the Doctor, trying to see what he was doing. It looked like he was writing a program from scratch. She couldn't decide whether that was worrying or reassuring.

"Talking with Ianto," said Donna.

"Talking, huh?" said Owen with a snort. "Haven't heard it called that before."

"I prefer the term 'dancing,'" the Doctor put in, then seemed to realize what he just said. "Impulse control," he muttered, turning a delicate shade of pink.

Jack chose that exact moment to climb into view and emerge from his office, tucking his shirt in unashamedly.

"Morning," he said brightly, while Ianto popped up behind him, looking rather more self-conscious. "Gwen not in yet?"

"Not yet," confirmed Owen. "Probably busy having a long conversation with Rhys."

"Oh, honestly," said Donna with disgust, making a face.

"Just saying," said Owen, unrepentant.

"Doctor, how long is this going to take?" asked Toshiko, pulling the focus away from Owen's inappropriate speculation and back to the Doctor's appropriation of her computers.

The Doctor's hand hit the table with a bang, making them all jump.

"I don't know!"

There was a beat of startled silence.

"Sorry," the Doctor said, not sounding all that sincere as he gritted his teeth and pressed his hands into his eyes. "Sorry, I just – I don't know, alright?"

"Alright," said Toshiko, very carefully. "Take all the time you need."

The Doctor didn't respond, only curling his fingers to dig into his scalp.

"Owen, go check the Rift activity," Jack ordered, his eyes never leaving the Doctor, who was beginning to shake minutely.

"But –"

" _Now._ "

Owen went.

"I'll go . . . help him," said Toshiko awkwardly, and fled after him. She shot a glance over her shoulder as she joined Owen on the other side of the fountain. Ianto had moved off as well, probably under the pretext of making coffee. The Doctor was just visible at her desk, face in his hands, shoulders shuddering. She swallowed a turned away.

For a short time, Toshiko had been able to read minds. What she had discovered had disturbed and frightened her, leaving her feeling dirty and hopeless. Sometimes, she imagined what it would have been like had the Doctor been there when she wore that pendant – and then she woke up screaming.

~~~

Jack resisted the urge to wrap the shuddering Time Lord in his arms and never let go. The Doctor had said that they were okay, but he doubted that physical contact would be taken well at the moment. Instead, he allowed Donna to move forward, crouching down beside the Doctor and laying a gentle hand on his arm.

"Doctor, what's wrong?" she questioned softly.

"No, it's nothing," he muttered, pushing the heels of his hands into his eyes. "It's just – headache, that's all."

"Are you sick?" Donna questioned, her tone going sharper. "You getting a fever? We wouldn't have even noticed, your skin's so cold and you're shaking anyway – how long have you been feeling ill? That's why you wanted that ridiculous blazer, isn't it? What about –?"

"No," groaned the Doctor, cutting her off. "Donna, I'm not sick. I'm just . . . over stimulated."

The bottom dropped out of Jack's stomach. Shit. Shit, he should have realized –

"Is it me?" he asked, his mouth dry even as he tried to keep his voice steady. "Doc, you should have said something earlier. I can leave –"

"No!" The Doctor's head snapped up, sheer panic flashing across his face. "No, Jack, don't, please don't, you promised –"

"Doctor!" Jack was before him in an instant, grasping his shoulder in one hand and cupping his cheek with the other. "Doctor, look at me. Calm down."

The Doctor met his eyes, struggling to control his breathing.

"I'm not going anywhere," said Jack firmly. "Not if you don't want me to. You got that?"

The Doctor nodded once, and Jack allowed him to pull away.

"Sorry," the Doctor said, this time sincerely, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Don't know where that came from. I'm not terribly rational right now."

"We understand," said Donna, who had never left his side. "Now, tell me what this headache's about."

"Time's a bit wibbly around here," explained the Doctor. "I haven't quite gotten my footing, yet."

"The Rift," said Jack, with dawning comprehension.

"That, yeah. Also the heap of anachronisms which we're standing on top of, but mostly the Rift. Takes some getting used to."

"But then . . ." Jack frowned, a sickening thought occurring to him. "Was it like this last time?"

"Well, you have to realize, right now both my body and my mind are under an incredible amount of stress. It exacerbates the Rift's distortion, makes it harder to drown out. Under normal circumstances –"

"The last time you were here," Jack cut him off, low and unyielding, "you hadn't eaten in two weeks, hadn't slept in longer, and had just been tortured for three days straight. If you try to convince me that's normal, I promise you will not see your TARDIS key for the rest of this century."

The Doctor sighed, propping his elbows on the desk and burying his face in his hands again.

"To be perfectly honest," he said, his voice slightly muffled and very tired, "I barely even noticed."

"How could you not –" Jack began, but stopped, horrible comprehension flooding him. "Oh."

_You don't feel a raindrop when you're caught a tsunami. What's a bit of sensory overload to a man who's already aching from torture and exhaustion and self-loathing?_

"Doctor . . ."

"It's fine," said the Doctor shortly, flinching away as Jack reached for his shoulder. "I'm fine. I just need to finish this."

"Is there anything we can do to help?" asked Donna.

"Space," said the Doctor, avoiding their eyes. "Some space would be good."

Donna seemed ready to protest, but took another look and changed gear.

"Alright," she said. "I think we can do that. Captain?"

Jack hesitated. The Doctor had seemed so desperate for them to stay only moments ago, and now he was pushing them away. It wasn't wholly surprising, especially in the state he was in now, but it was worrying, and damn, he didn't want to let the Time Lord out his sight at the moment. Or ever.

Donna fixed him with a stern look.

"Yeah, okay. If you need anything, Doc, just ask."

Jack did the last thing he wanted to, and turned away.

~~~

Donna leaned against the rail of the balcony, watching Jack watch the Doctor. There was no mistaking the naked devotion on his face – and yet, the Doctor, for some reason, had been utterly terrified that he would abandon him.

"He really doesn't believe it, does he?"

The Captain jumped, as if he had forgotten she was there.

"Believe what?"

No question who the 'he' was. Good lord, the Doctor was dense. Anyone with the social awareness of a crustacean could see that Jack was completely infatuated.

"That you'll be there for him."

Jack went rigid, glancing away from her and back to where the Doctor sat at Toshiko's computers.

"He knows I will."

"Yeah," Donna conceded, "but he doesn't believe it. That was proper panic back there. I know he's all pumped full of hormones and such, but that came from somewhere."

Jack flinched as though struck, his handsome face twisting with anger.

"I didn't know!" he spat, and fell back almost immediately, covering his eyes with his hand as his anger turned inward. "I didn't realize. I thought my team needed me more; I thought –"

"Whoa, slow down, Captain Flash!" said Donna, surprised and confused. She had been ready to attribute the Doctor's paranoia to nine hundred years of abandonment issues, but it seemed there was something more direct at play. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Jack faltered, a bewildered look flashing across his face before he recovered and it went blank.

"Nothing. Never mind."

"Don't you 'never mind' me!" snapped Donna, drawing herself up to her full height. "You tell me  _right now_ , what did you do?"

"I left him!"

Jack's confession was too loud; it echoed in the Hub. Over his shoulder, the Doctor froze for an instant. Jack lowered his voice.

"I left him," he repeated tightly, guilt and desperation leaking into his words. "He asked me to go with him, and I said no, and the next time I saw him he had one foot in the grave and the other on a ledge. I don't think he'd have lasted another week on his own. But I swear to you,  _I didn't know._ "

"I believe you," Donna assured him.

"He doesn't," said Jack, swallowing hard.

"He  _does_ ," Donna insisted. "He's not that thick. He knows you'd never hurt him on purpose."

"But he doesn't trust that I won't by accident."

"Of course he doesn't," said Donna, rolling her eyes. "You're not perfect. Anyway, he's got more raw nerves than normal ones, and you've got all of eternity to stumble across them all."

Jack didn't look amused, and she sighed.

"He's just scared, Captain, and there's no promise in the Universe that can stop that. There's nothing rational about it. Once he's grown I'm sure he won't mention it again."

"But it will still be there," said Jack unhappily.

"Yeah, it will," Donna agreed, "but so will we. Forever."

"Forever," Jack agreed, in that tone which was so much more than a promise, and this time, Donna believed him.

There was a beep and a triumphant shout from beneath them. They both turned to see the Doctor on his feet, grinning.

"It's ready!"


	13. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jack calls bullshit, Donna is annoyed, and the Doctor's Clause of Murphy's Law is invoked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Just a heads up, this chapter might not make a lot of sense if you haven't read Damage Control. Then again, you'll be able to infer at least as much as Donna can, so hopefully it's not too confusing.)

"Doctor."

Donna was trying, unsuccessfully, to get the Doctor to stop focusing on the age-advancer for two seconds so that they could discuss what the hell it would actually do. Jack, leaning against the wall of the TARDIS med bay with his arms crossed, felt just as exasperated as she looked. They were only in the med bay at the combined insistence of the two of them. Jack wished he had a couple of his team members here, but they were out on a call and the Doctor had refused to wait. He also wished he knew how much of the Doctor's reluctance to take care of himself sprang from adolescent arrogance, and how much was his underlying self-destructive streak.

" _Doctor_."

"Mm?"

"Is that thing safe?"

"Yep."

"Will it hurt?"

"Nope."

"Are you lying?"

"Yep."

"Oh, for god's sake –"

"I'll be  _fine_ ," the Doctor sighed, looking up at last. "The risk is minimal. And yes, it will hurt, but that's to be expected when you excite the artron energy of every cell in your body simultaneously."

"Artron energy?" Jack questioned sharply. "Like regeneration?"

"A bit, yeah, except not at all. See, I can't just age myself like normal because then I still won't have any of my muscle memory, and I quite like my muscle memory; it's extremely useful. Anyway, rapid aging like that can cause a lot of complications, especially when adolescence is in involved. So my best bet is just reversing the de-aging process – which would be easy if I had access to the original machine, but since I don't, I'm just turning back the personal timeline of my physical body."

"You can do that?" Jack questioned with a frown.

"I can," the Doctor confirmed. "You can't. Well, maybe  _you_  could, but no other human. It all has to do with the latent artron energy in my cells. Also, my memory and my actual personal timeline are resistant to change, so I can change what point my body is at in its timeline without unraveling everything else."

Jack's frown deepened as he turned that over in his mind.

"That doesn't make any sense," he concluded.

"Of course it doesn't!" the Doctor burst out, exasperated. "That's not what's happening at all. There are no words in English for what's actually going to happen, and even if there were, you can't comprehend it with human senses."

"Are you just making things up?" Donna demanded, sounding extremely affronted.

"Pretty much," the Doctor replied tightly. "It all amounts to the same thing, though."

"Which is?"

"I'm actually aging myself backwards, not forwards, and the temporal mechanics aren't very precise and I might end up someplace I don't want to be! Happy now?"

"No, I'm not," Donna retorted, unfazed by his flare of temper. "Are you gonna lose memories again?"

"No." The anger had died once more, leaving him sounding tired and resigned. Jack wasn't sure which he preferred. "I might be disoriented for a few moments, depending where I end up, but that's all."

"Exactly how 'not precise' are we talking?" asked Jack. He would have rather left the Doctor as he was than risk him ending up as he had been during the Year that Never Was . . . .

"It won't be off by more than a year," said the Doctor, evidently reading the true cause of his concern.

"And when you say the risk is minimal, what does that mean? What are the chances that it'll malfunction?"

"Dunno. Twenty percent, maybe?"

"And what are the chances that the malfunction will be lethal?"

"Lower than the chances that I'll hurt someone if I have to stay like this any longer!"

Jack could read the fear behind the Doctor's anger. He was just as scared of his lack of control as they were; maybe even more so. And, Jack reminded himself, his gaze drifting to the Doctor's splinted hand, there was one person who was likely to bear the brunt of the Doctor's rage.

"Okay," he agreed. "Do it."

The Doctor rolled his eyes and muttered indiscernibly under his breath, probably about how he was nine hundred years old and didn't need anyone's permission. He began to strip off his splint with clinical efficiency.

"Hang on, what do you think you're doing?" asked Donna.

"My entire bone structure is about to change; it won't fit anymore," the Doctor explained, finishing the splint and moving on to his clothes. "I won't need it, anyway; my bones will never have been broken. Turn around, will you?"

Both Jack and Donna complied, though they exchanged slightly exasperated looks as they did so. When they received clearance to turn again the Doctor was back in his too-large suit.

"Right, then," he said, hopping up onto the exam table. He reached for the age-advancer, but hesitated. "Actually, it's probably best if I'm immobilized for this. Wouldn't do to have me falling over and cracking my head open. That was embarrassing enough the first time around. Jack?"

Reluctantly, Jack moved forward and fastened straps around the Doctor's wrists for the second time in as many days.

"Green button," was all the Doctor said.

Jack picked up the age-advancer, his thumb hovering over the button. He glanced at the Doctor, who refused to meet his eyes, so he looked at Donna, instead. Looking just as frightened and uncertain as he felt, she nodded.

He pressed the button.

It was faster than Jack had expected. He had pictured something vaguely glowing and a bit like an elapsed-time film of a tree growing, except with more writhing and screaming involved. What he got was a blinding flash of light and a single, pathetic whimper, then Donna's voice as he tried to blink away the after-images.

"Well, that was dramatic. You alright, Doctor?

". . . Doctor?"

Jack's vision was finally clear, and his breath caught in his throat. The Doctor was himself again, tall and sharp and beautiful – and still. Too still. He wasn't breathing.

Panic surging through him, Jack leapt forward, tearing the restraints from delicate, bruised wrists and searching desperately for a pulse – only to freeze when he heard a familiar click and a shocked, urgent "Jack!" from Donna.

Very, very slowly, he raised his head, and found himself staring up the barrel of his own gun, into a pair of glazed, over-bright brown eyes. The Doctor wasn't just disoriented – he was drugged, traumatized, and furious. Jack had some idea of where in his timeline he had ended up, and knew that he had to snap him out of it, right now.

"Doctor," he said, low and even, not moving an inch. "It's me. It's Jack. You're in the TARDIS. You're safe."

The Doctor frowned, obviously struggling to think clearly through whatever he had been dosed with. Slowly, slowly, the fear and anger ebbed, giving way to horror and shame. Jack caught the gun as it slipped from his shaking hands.

"Jack," he rasped out, before his gaze jumped to someplace over his shoulder. "Donna."

"Hey, Spaceman," said Donna, moving to Jack's side. "Back with us, I see. Lay down, will you? You look like death."

"I'm sorry," he said as Jack gently pushed him back down. "I didn't – I thought –"

"Shh, it's alright," Donna assured him, smoothing his hair back from his forehead. He initially flinched from her touch, but relaxed with a shaky sigh when she persisted. "I'm guessing that this is one of those places you didn't want to be."

"You could say that," agreed the Doctor with a thin chuckle which dissolved into a groan as a painful shudder wracked his body.

"What's wrong?" Donna questioned sharply.

"He's going into withdrawal," said Jack, dragging his gaze away from the Doctor's face and to the shelves and cabinets which surrounded them. "He's been drugged for days – or his body thinks he has – and now he's detoxing; if I can find something like whatever they gave him I can slow it down –"

"No!" The Doctor caught his wrist in a surprisingly strong grip. "I'll ride it out," he said, even as another tremor ran though his too-thin frame. "It won't take long. I have a very efficient –"

Donna shoved a bin in front of him just as he doubled over, retching. Jack's suspicions were confirmed by the deep incision which marred the nape of the Time Lord's neck, scarlet blood against deathly pale skin.

"Shit," he muttered. "Donna, hand me the dermal regenerator." It wouldn't do much for the internal damage, but it would at least stop the bleeding, saving his suit and hopefully making him look less like he was falling apart under Jack's hands . . . .

"The what?"

"Grey thing, looks like a radar gun."

Donna pushed it into his hand and he ran it over the Doctor's wound, carefully, tenderly, trying to ignore his dry heaving and the thought that oh, god, this had happened before, it had happened before and he had been alone then, alone and hurting and believing that he deserved every agonizing second of it and Jack hadn't been there for him, no one had been there for him; it was no wonder that he was so terrified of abandonment –

The Doctor collapsed back onto the bed, breathing hard, and Jack forced himself to focus, grasping the Doctor's hand to keep them both anchored.

"Okay, Doc, you'll be okay; just try to relax. If you think you can stay still for a few moments I can check for other injuries –"

"Sprained ankle, three broken ribs, lots of bruising. Nothing I can't sleep off. Gng!" He bit back a cry of pain as another spasm ran through him, his hand tightening on Jack's. With broken ribs, every breath would be painful – all that retching much have been excruciating.

"'Sleep off' my ass," said Jack. "You've got to have something in here to fix up bones –"

"Nothing that won't interact badly with the sedatives in my system," said the Doctor firmly, or as firmly as he could through the pain and lingering fog of drugs. "Really, I just need rest."

"At least let us give you something for the pain," Donna insisted, but the Doctor shook his head, then stilled quickly as the movement tugged at the wound on his neck.

"Haven't got anything," he said, his voice growing drowsy as his eyelids drooped. "Used them up . . . during the War . . . and now . . . ingredients . . . long . . . gone . . . ."

His eyes slid shut, his breathing evening out. Jack and Donna stood in silence for a moment, watching his horribly thin chest rise and fall slowly.

"He's probably dehydrated," said Donna at last, softly. "There wasn't much in him to begin with, and then he sicked it all up. I know we should let him sleep, but maybe we could set up, I don't know, a saline drip or something."

"Watch a lot of medical shows, do you?" Jack questioned, his lip quirking in amusement despite the situation.

"Every once in a while," said Donna, raising an eyebrow challengingly. "Something wrong with that?"

"No, of course not," Jack replied. "You're right, actually, we should get some fluid in him. I'll –" He stopped. He had begun to step away from the exam table, pulling his hand from the Doctor's in the process, but the movement had caused the Time Lord to tighten his grip, a thin whimper escaping his lips.

"You stay right there, Captain," said Donna, smiling gently. "I'll find the saline – and a couple chairs."

A few minutes and some careful instruction later, Jack and Donna were seated beside each other and the Doctor was one step closer to not looking like an emaciated ghost. Jack cradled one cold, thin hand between both his own, wishing that he could do more, that he could heal him in more ways than just physically, that he could convince the Doctor to believe in him the way he believed in the Doctor, despite the wrongs they had both committed –

"He never would tell me where that came from," Donna commented, pulling him from his thoughts.

"What?" asked Jack.

"That scar," she elaborated. "On his neck. Hard not to notice, the way he's always rubbing at it, but he'd never answer me properly about it. I guess now I know why. Not that I know what happened, really, but I just – I know that I don't want to know."

"Yeah," Jack agreed, his eyes turning back to the Doctor. He had never asked how the Time Lord had escaped that research facility on Taxial IV – now that he knew, he was glad that he hadn't. He felt sick as he pictured it: the Doctor playing dead, seizing his captor's weapon, limping his way through an unfamiliar compound and all the horrors in contained while hoping and praying that the adrenaline overcame the drugs and exhaustion and pain for long enough for him to free the others . . . he wouldn't have had a thought for himself, not normally and certainly not in the state of mind he had been in when he stumbled into Torchwood two days later, little more than a false smile floating atop and ocean of self-loathing . . . .

Belatedly, something about Donna's words settled unpleasantly in Jack's stomach.

"It's not the scar," he said abruptly. She looked at him quizzically, and he explained. "When he rubs his neck, that's not because of the scar. It's just a nervous tick. He's always done that – this him, anyway."

She continued to look perplexed, and he shook his head.

"Sorry. That's not really important, it's just –" He shook his head again, not sure what it was.

"He's more than just his scars," Donna finished for him.

"Yeah," Jack agreed, swallowing. "That's it." He pulled the Doctor's hand up and pressed a soft kiss to his knuckles. "Can you hear me, Doctor? You are so much more."

The Doctor shifted in his sleep, and something caught the soft light of the med bay.

Gently, Jack reached forward and wiped away the lone tear.

 


	14. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Owen is shunned, stories are exchanged, and Donna and Jack participate in a bit of mutual appreciation.

"Owen, I'm not sure you're the best person –"

"I'm the only person in this place with a fucking medical degree."

"Yes, but your bedside manner leaves something to be desired," Ianto pointed out from where he had paused at the door of the TARDIS. It wasn't that he didn't think Owen cared – he just had an abrasive, prickly way of showing it, and with the Doctor's mental state unknown but certainly fragile, not to mention Jack strung out and protective, insensitive sarcasm would probably be far from helpful.

"I'm not leaving Dr. Guilt-Complex's medical care to Captain Lovebird and Miss Temper," snapped Owen, crossing his arms stubbornly, and it was settled.

At least, it was until they got past the console room and were intercepted by Donna.

"Oh no," she said, stepping into Owen's path. "Those two don't need any help being morbid and avoidant. You want to do something useful, you can make the tea." She dragged him off, ignoring his protests, and added over her shoulder "The Doctor and your Captain are in there," nodding towards the door she had come from.

Ianto hesitated for a moment, then, upon receiving the impression of a not-quite-tangible nudge, moved forward, if only to avoid contemplating just how telepathic the TARDIS was.

He stepped through the door and into a highly futuristic but unmistakable hospital room – or rather, medical bay, he supposed, considering that they were on a ship. Jack was sitting at the far end of the room, in front of an exam table on which the Doctor, tall and pinstriped once more, was perched.

"Honestly, Jack," the Doctor was protesting half-heartedly. "You don't even have medical training."

"I've been around the block a few times, Doc," replied Jack, not stopping his gentle examination of the Doctor's bare and (as far as Ianto could see) perfectly fit ankle. "I can tell a sprained ankle from a healthy one."

"I told you, it's  _fine_ ," said the Doctor, though Ianto noted that he wasn't making any attempt to avoid Jack's soft touches. "Accelerated healing, remember? Hello, Ianto."

"Hello," Ianto said, while Jack glanced over his shoulder and gave a brief smile in greeting. "I take it I missed something?"

"Just some misadventures in temporal technology," said the Doctor lightly. Even if Ianto hadn't known his penchant for understatement, it would have been made obvious by his presence in the med bay and the dark look that Jack gave him.

"He's been unconscious for the past three hours," said Jack grimly. "His body thinks that it's a few days before he turned up here."

Ianto frowned, puzzled, but Jack elaborated before he had to ask.

"Not a few days before now. A few days before the first time."

It took Ianto a moment to make the connection – and then his eyes went wide and he spun towards the Doctor almost involuntarily, examining him with fresh scrutiny. Now that he looked closer he could see the faint bruises on his wrists, the certain sharp thinness of his frame which was rather more pronounced than it had been in his younger form.

"Yeah," Jack agreed with his unspoken alarm, before turning back to the Doctor. "Shirt," he ordered.

"You won't like it."

" _Doctor_."

"I can come back later," Ianto offered as the Doctor gave a longsuffering sigh and set to work on his buttons. He was already backing towards the door, but stopped in his tracks when the hum of the room shifted abruptly, the lights dimming for an instant.

The Doctor and Jack both glanced up, looking almost as startled as Ianto was.

"She wants you to stay," said the Doctor, with a level of surprise which Ianto may have found insulting, if he weren't so disconcerted. "You may as well," he added, turning back to his buttons. "You've certainly seen worse from me."

Ianto wasn't sure of that, as the Doctor's shirt fell open and Jack gave a strangled curse. Every rib was visible, but Ianto barely saw that beneath the deep, painful bruises which marred the sickly pale skin, blue and black and purple.

"It's not as bad as it looks," the Doctor said, avoiding their eyes. "Accelerated healing doesn't do much for external damage. It'd be a waste of energy. My ribs are healed; the rest will just take time."

He moved to redo his buttons, but Jack caught his wrist, stopping him. Jack waited until the Doctor met his gaze, tumultuous brown against steady blue.

"The people who did this to you," Jack said, his gentle tone not quite masking the fierce, protective fury beneath it, "are they dead?"

The Doctor swallowed, an indefinable rush of emotions flashing across his face.

"Yes."

Jack nodded, releasing his arm.

"Good."

The Doctor was frowning as he did up his shirt, but it was less the disapproval which Ianto would have expected and more puzzlement, as if he couldn't imagine why Jack would care. He opened his mouth, but anything he might have said was cut off when the door slammed open and Donna came storming in, Owen trailing behind her sulkily.

"That is  _it!_ " she declared angrily. "Get dressed, Spaceman, we're going out for lunch. The twitchy little runt is not invited."

"Owen . . ." the Doctor sighed, giving the smaller man a disappointed look as he pulled his jacket on.

"She started it," Owen accused, then flinched away as Donna spun to glare at him. Apparently satisfied with his reaction, she turned instead to Jack, her scowl softening.

"You too, Captain," she said. "Don't think I haven't noticed that you haven't eaten all day. You're as bad as the Doctor, honestly."

"Standing right here," the Doctor put in, but Donna just rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, and looking like you'd disappear if you turned sideways. What about you, Ianto, have you eaten?"

"Um, no," said Ianto, slightly startled at being addressed. "No, actually, I haven't."

"Right then, you and the Captain can make a date of it. Someone has to pay, and it's not going to be Mr. 'I have a whole bleeding teashop in my pockets but not a single quid.'"

"That's  _Dr._  'I have a whole –'"

"Oh, shut it," said Donna, but there was warmth in her eyes as she took the Doctor's hand and tugged him out the door. Ianto glanced uncertainly at Jack, who shrugged and stood.

"You heard the lady."

"I'll just stay here, shall I?" Owen complained as they moved to follow Donna and the Doctor. "Monitor Rift activity, make sure the Universe isn't falling apart and all that."

"Yeah, you do that," Jack agreed. "Try not to fall asleep this time," he added over his shoulder.

Owen's muffled cursing followed them through the door.

~~~

"Look, all I'm saying is that if you ever carried money, you wouldn't have had to promise him a chicken."

Jack had one hand raised in mock defense, his other arm wrapped firmly around Ianto's waist. The Doctor sat across from him, illuminated by the warm sunlight pouring in the window, trying to look irritated but obviously enjoying himself. Donna looked on with fond amusement.

"And if you hadn't taken him up on that bet in the first place, I wouldn't have had to promise him anything."

Ianto cleared his throat, very politely.

"One question," he said evenly, and waited until the Doctor nodded his approval before continuing. "Why, in the name of sanity, would you take Jack to meet Casanova?"

"Well it wasn't exactly on purpose," the Doctor said, while Donna snorted. "We set the controls to random. Good thing, too, as it turns out . . ."

The Doctor fell to telling the tale in his usual rambling, tangential way. Jack took the opportunity to lean back and observe him. He was still obviously unhealthy, pale and thin and shaky – but he looked infinitely better than he had the last time. There was light in his eyes and depth in his smile which infused his whole being with life.

Jack just wished he could figure out how that had happened, so that he could do it again if necessary.

It was probably Donna's doing, he decided, watching as she slapped the Doctor on the arm one moment and then helped steady his trembling fingers the next. She was good for him. She knew when to push and when to pull back, how to give him the gentleness he needed without treating him like he was made of glass. Jack knew that he never managed to get that balance quite right.

It was best this way, anyway. Donna got to see the stars, the Doctor got someone to look after him, and Jack – he tightened his grip on Ianto, pressing a kiss to his cheek and feeling it flush hotly under his lips.

Jack didn't have to choose.

~~~

As she had informed Jack earlier, Donna stopped listening after about three minutes of rambling. She kept watching, though – partially to make sure the Doctor didn't accidently stab himself trying to use utensils with unsteady hands, but also just to soak it in, the smiles and the cheer which had been far too rare in the past couple weeks. She wouldn't call it beautiful, exactly . . . but yeah, it was beautiful, in a completely platonic way. Like sunshine breaking through the clouds.

Captain Jack was probably responsible for that, she thought, glancing across at the man who was watching the Doctor with unmistakable love in his eyes. He was good for him. He could offer him stability and protection without tying him down or injuring his dignity. He could match at least a fraction of the Time Lord's age and knowledge, offering the sort of understanding which Donna would never be capable of.

She watched as the Captain pecked a blushing Ianto on the cheek, and smiled. This really was the perfect arrangement. The Doctor needed an anchor, and Jack had his own reasons for staying.

". . . and that's why I am going to spend the rest of eternity avoiding Giacomo Casanova," the Doctor concluded. "It would have only been until my next regeneration, but  _somebody_  –" He shot a sour but toothless look at Jack. "—had to go and let slip that I change faces."

"Hey, it could have been a lot worse," Jack defended.

"Yes," Ianto agreed. "He could have founded a secret organization bent on destroying you."

Jack tensed for a moment, but the Doctor just laughed. It was one of the best sounds Donna had ever heard.

"Fair point," he conceded.

"See? I'm positively tame," said Jack with a grin. "And I'm the responsible one around here, remember."

Ianto gave a small cough.

"Alright, you too. And Toshiko's usually pretty good about security. But did I ever tell you how Gwen found out about us?"

"I know she was a police officer."

"Well, Owen's not going to be happy that I told you this, but he's going to hold the de-aging thing over your head forever, so I might as well give you something to fire back with . . . ."

The rest of meal passed pleasantly enough, but by the time the Doctor's plate was clean the clouds had reappeared behind his eyes. Watching as he tapped his fingers against the table and his breathing sped up, Donna decided that something had to be done before he exploded.

"No need for us all to stay cooped up in here," she said. "Why don't we leave you two lovebirds to pay? I could use some fresh air, anyway."

"Yes, absolutely," the Doctor agreed fervently, surging to his feet. "I –" He paled and swayed, and Donna leaped forward to catch him.

"Whoa there," she said, grasping his arm supportively as he regained his balance. "Take it easy, Spaceman."

"I'm fine," said the Doctor, shaking her off. "Just stood up too quickly, that's all. Air! Air is good. Let's go find some, shall we?"

He darted for the door. Donna let him go, shooting a reassuring look at a worried Jack before following.

She found the Doctor a short distance away, on a platform overlooking the bay. She came to stand beside him, glancing down at the water beneath them before turning to examine him. The color and cheer from earlier had drained away. He was leaning heavily on the safety rail, his bony hands white-knuckled, his eyes squeezed shut against reality as he struggled to control his breathing.

"We're not leaving, yet," said Donna, and it wasn't a suggestion. "Not for a few days, at least. You need this."

"I know," the Doctor said, and the words seemed to be pulled from him like a bad tooth. "I know, I just –" He gave a thick chuckle, closer to a sob than to the bright laughter of before. "Not enough air," he muttered, more to himself than to her. "Shouldn't be a problem, respiratory bypass, but there's not  _enough_  –"

"Doctor," said Donna firmly, laying one gentle hand over his bony, freezing one and cutting across his rising distress. It said something about the way he operated, she thought, that the first time she saw him slow down was also the first time she saw him panic. "There's plenty of air. Let yourself breathe."

He drew in one deep breath, let it out. Then another. Slowly, he relaxed, turning his hand over to interlace his fingers with hers.

"Sorry," he said at last, running his free hand over his face. "I just – everything –"

"I know," said Donna softly, moving closer to him. "It's alright. You'll be alright, Doctor."

And he would. She was sure of it. They were halfway there already, getting him back on his feet and reminding him that he had a place to come back to.

Now he just needed to remember how to breathe.

 


	15. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which many people make observations, though some are more useful than others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Last chapter! There will be a short epilogue to follow.)

Jack watched the Doctor out of the corner of his eye as they returned to Torchwood. The Time Lord seemed calmer after his talk with Donna, but he remained close beside the ginger all the way back to the Hub, clutching her hand as if it was his last anchor to reality. She seemed to understand his need for contact, occasionally brushing her other hand along his arm in a soothing gesture.

"I see the Universe didn't fall apart," Jack told Owen.

"I take it he didn't," Owen returned, jerking his head at the Doctor, who was looking rather put-upon as Donna and Gwen chatted.

"Not too badly," said Jack. "He just moves so quickly most of the time; there's always a jolt when he stops."

Owen snorted.

"More like a fiery wreck."

"Not this time," said Jack firmly, and for once, he believed his own words.

The sound of someone clearing their throat made them both turn. The Doctor was leaning on the rail above the autopsy room, and while he was using it to support just a touch more of his weight than could have looked casual, his expression was fairly clear.

"I'm going to poke around in the archives for a bit," he informed them. "Also, you should be aware that when you're down there and I'm up here, I can hear everything you're saying."

"You could have told us that five minutes earlier," Owen grumbled, while Jack grimaced apologetically.

"And you could use less colorful metaphors in your amateur attempts at psycho-analysis, but where's the fun in that?" asked the Doctor without a hint of real resentment. His face was lit up in a devilish grin, and it was the most beautiful thing Jack had ever seen.

"Try not to break anything!" he regained his voice in time to call after the Doctor, who twirled on the spot, gave him a mocking salute, and turned his back again without slowing down.

Owen frowned after him.

"His stride's off, and he was in the med bay, earlier," he said. "He's hurt, isn't he? He hasn't been anywhere for the past two days and he's still managed to fuck himself up somehow. Again."

"Yeah," Jack confirmed. "He has. But he's healing."

That, he thought, was truer than ever.

~~~

Donna watched with interest as the Doctor moved about the archives. He certainly knew his way around, automatically stepping past what looked like shelves upon shelves full of weapons and instead heading towards a very specific place in the back. He frowned at the shelf for a moment, shifted a couple things around, then turned to address Ianto.

"Did you move the lio'liare?" he questioned.

"The what?" Ianto asked, his brow furrowing in polite confusion.

"The trans-dimensional sound wave resonator," said the Doctor, as if that explained everything. Donna rolled her eyes and opened her mouth scold him into making sense, but Ianto's expression cleared before she could speak.

"That musical instrument," he said, nodding in comprehension. "We returned it, actually."

"Really?" asked the Doctor, his eyebrows shooting up in surprise.

"Really," Ianto confirmed. "Its owner came back for it. A little girl, I think. Her younger brother got a hold of it and managed to teleport it to Earth, and she'd been looking for it ever since."

"Kids are the same everywhere," Donna commented with an amused shake of her head.

"They are, yeah," the Doctor agreed, a wistful look coming across his face for a moment before he shook himself. "Right, never mind that. You said you had some new things in?"

"Yes, just back here . . ."

The Doctor fell upon the pile of alien junk with enthusiasm, and Donna settled down across from him, both to avoid getting beaned by the little mechanical bits which he occasionally tossed over his shoulder and to give herself an opportunity to speak to Ianto some more.

"That was impressive," she told him, making him jump a little and glance up from the newspaper he was reading.

"What was?" he asked.

"Sorting out his technobabble," she said, jerking her head at the Doctor.

"I'm sitting right here, you know."

"It's not that hard, with practice," said Ianto. "You just have to listen for the parts which aren't made up."

"Still right here!"

"I always thought all of it was made up," Donna said.

" _Oi!_ "

"Alright, alright," she conceded, reaching out to pat the Doctor on the arm in a conciliatory gesture. Despite the irritation which he was trying to keep in his expression, he leaned into her touch instinctively, and she gave his hand a gentle squeeze before withdrawing. "Don't get your knickers in a twist. You want in on the conversation; you can answer something for me. How long were you here, last time?"

The Doctor shrugged uncomfortably, ducking over the twisty, rusted thing in his hands and avoiding her eyes.

"A while."

Donna shot a look at Ianto, who answered without looking up from his newspaper.

"Three months."

"Yeah?" she said, trying not to let too much of her surprise show in her voice. Judging by the clenching of the Doctor's jaw, she failed. "What were you doing?"

"Mostly sorting out this place," said the Doctor, nodding at the archives in general.

Donna could tell from the tension in the Doctor's frame and the way Ianto's eyes flickered towards him that there was more to the story than that, but she didn't press. The past was the past, and digging up whatever the Doctor was ashamed of (for some completely daft reason, no doubt) wouldn't accomplish anything useful.

"Well, it did you good," she stated, and the Doctor peered at her curiously.

"Why d'you say that?" he asked – not as if he was denying it, but more as if he wanted to know how she knew.

"I dunno, you're just . . . different from when I first met you. You seem less . . ."  _like you'd wreak fiery vengeance upon someone for looking at you funny and then take a swan-dive off a bridge,_  was what she was thinking, but somehow, she didn't think that that would go over well. "Less sharp around the edges," she finished instead. "Maybe this place isn't all that got sorted."

"Maybe not," the Doctor agreed, glancing around thoughtfully. "Maybe not."

~~~

Night had fallen outside the Hub. Within it, it was still and empty, with Jack's team returned to their homes and Donna retired to the TARDIS. The Doctor was curled in his customary spot on the sofa, arms wrapped around his knees, expression distant. It was an all-too-familiar sight, and looking at him now Jack could almost believe that the worry of the past few months and the insanity of the past couple days had been nothing more than a dream.

Then he sank down beside him, and the Doctor turned with a small smile, and there was a depth and a warmth in it which never would have been present before. His posture was subtly different, as well: looser, more relaxed and casual than huddled and defensive.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Jack asked, when the silence had stretched for long enough.

"I was just thinking that I should apologize to Toshiko," said the Doctor, his lip quirking upward and turning his smile wry. "That was her paperweight I destroyed, wasn't it?"

"Actually, it wasn't. Gwen got it for Owen to annoy him. It just sort of migrates around the Hub. They all slipped it onto each other's desks when they weren't looking."

"Guess I did you a service, then," said the Doctor, laughing softly.

"Guess you did," Jack agreed.

The Doctor's smile faded as he glanced at the mark which remained on the wall from his earlier outburst.

"I really am sorry about that, Jack. You're the last person I should be throwing things at."

"I probably did something at some point to deserve it," said Jack, but he could feel the last traces of levity draining away, and he sighed. "To be honest, Doc, the paperweight wasn't what worried me."

The Doctor frowned, looking confused, but Jack preempted any questions by pulling his hand away from his knees and gently caressing the slender fingers, now whole and flawless once more. The Doctor tensed, but didn't pull away.

"I can't sit by and watch you hurt yourself, Doctor," said Jack, as steady and authoritative as he could manage.

"No, no, of course not," the Doctor agreed. "You wouldn't be the man you are if you could."

It was Jack's turn to frown in puzzlement, because there was something wrong about that statement, something quietly horrible, but what – oh.  _Oh._  Jack's breath caught, icy realization flooding him. Suddenly it all fell into place, why all his whispered reassurances had never quelled the pain in the Doctor's eyes, how his friend (his mentor, his love) could spend three months being cared for and still walk away hating himself.

"Doctor, you need to understand something, right now. All this, everything my team and I have done for you – it's not despite of who you are. It's  _because_  of it."

The Doctor opened his mouth to respond, but Jack cut him off.

"No, don't talk; just listen. The two of us have history, yeah, and I'll admit that Gwen would melt for anything that looked at her with sad eyes, but the others, Ianto and Tosh and Owen; they don't let themselves care about just anyone. But you, Ianto went from wanting to shoot you to letting you rearrange the archives in a week. Toshiko lights up whenever you compliment her. Owen – I've never seen Owen bond with  _anyone_  like he has with you."

The Doctor was staring at him, eyes dark and face pale in the dim light. There was denial in his expression, but behind it was something else, something startled and overwhelmed and vulnerable. Jack pressed his advantage, because this was important, so, so important, so utterly vital that he couldn't believe he had never said it out loud before, but he had always taken it for granted, always assumed that the Doctor knew –

"That's not because of who they are, Doctor. That's because of who  _you_  are. You bring out the best in people. You are an incredible person – the best person I've ever known – and my team can see that, just like I can. Just like Donna and Martha. Just like Rose."

Jack paused, holding the Doctor's gaze, giving him time to absorb the words.

"Do you believe me?"

"I –" The Doctor swallowed, shaking his head. "I don't know. I just – I don't know."

"Alright," said Jack gently. It wasn't acceptance, but it wasn't complete rejection of the idea, either, and that was far more that he had expected. He doubted that he could push any further tonight without something snapping, and he couldn't risk that, not yet. "Just think about it, okay?"

"Okay," the Doctor agreed.

Jack smiled and withdrew one hand from the Doctor's in order to thread it through his hair, pressing a kiss to his forehead. The Doctor allowed it, and also allowed Jack to wrap an arm around his shoulders and pull him close. His bony frame was softened slightly as he relaxed into the embrace, and the alien cold which seeped through his suit was refreshing in the oppressive summer heat.

Jack toyed with his fingers for a few more moments, marveling at their tapered elegance. Finally, he broke the silence.

"Promise me you won't hurt yourself again."

The Doctor sighed softly.

"I really don't make a habit of it. I doubt I'm going to throw anything else at your head, either."

"Promise me," Jack insisted, his grip tightening on the Doctor's hand. He couldn't stand the thought of those hands turning upon their owner; couldn't shake the images construed by Donna's flippant reference to razor blades; couldn't erase the memories of every look and word of self-hatred –

"I promise," said the Doctor, gripping back. Jack couldn't see his face, but his next words were filled with wry humor. "Donna would murder me."

"I don't doubt it," said Jack, laughing, and the tension evaporated. "I think you've finally met your match."

"Oh, definitely. First time I met her she slapped me twice in as many hours. Accused me of kidnapping her, which, I'll have you know, is  _not_  something I do. We-ell, not intentionally. Well . . . not anymore."

Jack listened to him ramble on, enjoying the solidity of his presence and the warm tenor of his voice. He was secure in the knowledge that they had a few more days before the Doctor departed and that, when he did, he would be in good hands. He wasn't alright, yet – there was still a tremor in his muscles and a catch in his voice when his story strayed towards things better left buried, but he easily diverted his train of thought and calmed himself with the comfort of Jack's thumb brushing regularly against the back of his hand.

The Doctor was hurt.

The Doctor was healing.

 


	16. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Dynamic Duo make their inevitable departure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end! Thank you so much to all my readers, and doubly so to anyone who commented and/or kudo-ed. I really appreciate your feedback and encouragement.
> 
> At the moment, I don't have any concrete plans for continuing this series. I have half an idea for a post-Journey's End thing, but if that happens then it won't be for a while. Also, it wouldn't be half as cheerful as this story. We'll see how things go.

 

 

 

The next three days passed with a surprising lack of incident. Well, except for the five minor explosions, two rows, and one disastrous shopping trip (Donna was certain that the Doctor was intentionally difficult, just to keep her from asking him to get the milk ever again).

By the end of the second day, the Doctor was looking antsy, and by the third evening he seemed about ready to crawl out of his skin. When he began to literally twitch, shooting contemplative looks at the computers, Donna decided that he had probably had as much rest as he could tolerate.

"Doctor," she said, coming to sit beside him on the sofa and stilling his compulsive movements. "I think it's about time we got going."

"Yes!" the Doctor agreed, springing to his feet. "Molto bene!"

"Hold up, Spaceman!" said Donna, catching his arm as he made to bolt to the TARDIS. "We've still got some things to straighten out. First: are you fit enough to pilot the TARDIS?"

"I've  _been_  fit enough to pilot the TARDIS," the Doctor asserted.

"Without causing yourself excruciating pain?" asked Donna pointedly.

"Yes, yes, I'm fine," he said impatiently. "Now if we can just –"

" _Second_ ," she cut him off with a stern look, "you are not going anywhere without saying goodbye to this lot." She indicated the Torchwood team as a whole, all of whom had paused in their work to watch the exchange.

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of it," said the Doctor, rocking back on his heels. Over his shoulder, Donna could see Jack's eyebrows quirk upwards skeptically where he stood in the doorway of his office.

"Are you leaving already?" Gwen asked, rising from her desk and ascending the stairs.

"'Fraid so, yeah," said the Doctor, his eagerness fading slightly and his lips twisting into an apologetic smile. "You've all been wonderful, you really have, but I think it's time I got back in the saddle, so to speak. Also," he continued in lighter tones, "if we stay any longer Donna and Owen might kill each other, which would make things a bit awkward. Oof!"

The Doctor let out a little huff of air as Gwen hugged him – gently, in deference to the bruises which had yet to fade completely.

"Take care of yourself," she ordered as she pulled back. "I mean it, this time!"

"Yes, ma'am," the Doctor agreed, with a joking salute.

"Second that," said Owen from where he was sulking in the archway, pretending not to care. "I don't care how fucking traumatized you are; feed yourself, for fuck's sake."

"Also, it's probably best if you avoid the trauma in the first place," Ianto pointed out, and the Doctor grinned ruefully.

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Thank you for looking at my programs," said Toshiko. "Your comments were very helpful."

"Oh, it was my pleasure," said the Doctor with a warm smile. He turned towards Jack and the smile faded somewhat, though the warmth remained. "Captain."

Jack tilted his head in the suggestion of a nod, his expression falling short of a careless grin.

"Doctor."

It was impossible to tell who moved first, but a moment later the two men were wrapped in a tight embrace, so raw and intimate that Donna averted her eyes. By the time she looked back, they had separated slightly, but Jack kept a hold of the Doctor's shoulder as he spoke, low and earnest.

"Remember what I told you."

"I will."

There was a moment of heavy silence, and then the Doctor spun on his heel to face Donna, grinning widely.

"Right, then! Off we go!"

This time she let him get all the way to the TARDIS before stopping him with hand on his arm as he went to unlock the door.

"What now?" he groaned. Pleased though she was with his renewed enthusiasm, Donna refused to be quailed.

"I need you to promise me something, Doctor."

"I appreciate the thought, Donna, but Jack and I already had this conversation."

Donna glanced questioningly at Jack, who was still watching from the doorway. He held up his right hand and waggled his fingers in explanation.

"Good to know, but that's not what I was going to say."

"Then what –"

"If you'll shut your gob and  _listen_  for a second, I'll tell you!" She glared at him, waiting until she was sure he'd stay silent before continuing. "Good. I want you to promise me that if you need to, or even if you want to, you'll come back here. No matter how long it's been; no matter what's happened in the meantime; no matter what silly stories you've told yourself about causing trouble or not being wanted. Alright?"

"Alright," the Doctor agreed solemnly. "I promise."

"I'll hold you to that," Donna warned him.

"I believe it," said the Doctor. " _Now_  can we go?"

He looked so much like the child he had been a few days ago, shifting impatiently, his voice nearly a whine. Donna couldn't help it – she laughed.

"Yes, okay; keep your shirt on. Lead the way, Spaceman!"

He leapt forward eagerly, getting the door open in record time and darting inside. Donna spared one last glance at Jack, who smiled wistfully after them.

"See you, Captain," she said, smiling back.

"And you, Donna Noble," he returned.

She pulled the door shut behind her. As she turned, her smile widened at the sight of the Doctor, spinning dials and pulling levers with completely unnecessary amounts of flourish. He grinned at her across the console, bright and shining and genuine, and reached for the handbrake. A familiar jolt, and his voice called out above the sound of dematerialization in a exclamation brimming with cheer and promise and hope.

"Allons-y!"

~Fin~

 


End file.
